Fearlessness
by Medusa Davenport
Summary: 'He grabs her wrist, gripping until she gasps with the pain. "Has it never occurred to you that I might hurt you?" Hawke glares at him. "If that's supposed to scare me, you should know better."' Kinky smutty FenrisxF!MageHawke
1. Introduction

Something of a companion to 'Viciousness,' but with a totally different Hawke. I got the idea driving in my car and trying to figure out why Hawke is so special, what gives him/her the ability to face down any threat and survive it. I had the idea that Hawke was born without fear, and was going to make a oneshot character study, but as 'Viciousness' winds up, I realized I'm gonna miss this pairing. For all the Fenris/F!Hawke fans, including myself.

**warnings:** Act 1 spoilers? I presume anyone who's reading this has at least played _that_ far, haha

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><p>The first time he sees her, his lips twist in a grim smile and he tears a man's heart from his chest, half-expecting that she will swoon or faint. But she gives him a sort of nod, almost in approval, and he finds himself apologizing for the slavers' numbers to this strange woman in her dark blue dress.<p>

"I'm used to idiots trying to kill me," she laughs, and he stares at her and wonders how a mercenary can fight in a dress.

Another man might wax poetic about the loveliness of her delicate features and brilliant eyes. Still another might fixate on her charm, the easy laughter flowing from her lips like a brook and the encouragement she offers with every grin, her sharp mind and uncanny observational powers displayed with every joke. He can't look at her or speak with her and not appreciate these qualities, even admire them. But he is not compelled by her beauty or intelligence or humor.

His eyes meet hers and he feels a faint smirk cross his lips. "I am Fenris," he says by way of introduction, and he remains there talking to her and answering her questions for several minutes longer than he meant to, trying to determine what it is about her that draws his attention.

Before he can stop himself, he asks her help in defeating Denarius once and for all. Not because he believes himself incapable, but because he enjoys the sound of her clear laugh and he needs to know this woman, to understand why it is that the lyrium under his skin tingles with strange jolts he's never felt before as he looks at her. He needs her to come with him so he can understand why she's set him reeling against all good sense and every survival instinct he possesses.

He thrills at her fearlessness. Though they face many summoned monsters she faces them without any hint of anxiety, laughing as they appear out of thin air. The combination of deadly skill and a complete lack of fear make her dangerous without making her sloppy. Her poleax twists and spins, tearing through the demons, the motion never ceasing or hesitating and he must admit to being impressed at the way she moves in spite of her dress and at the brief flashes of her bare legs beneath when the fabric waves around her.

At one point a group of the creatures swarms her. For a moment he panics, his great blade slashing through the semi-solid flesh of ethereal foes and a moment later a terrible crack sounds, making him flinch with the memory of a whip. Yellow and purple arcs of electricity slam into the shades and they shriek as magic sears and melts them into foul-scented dust. He stares at her for a second and she grins in return, her fists alight with lightning.

His heart pounds, terror writhing in his gut that grows as he realizes that Denarius is gone. Unable to spend another moment surrounded by the scent of death and the memories of his master, he stalks outside and considers his situation. She follows a moment later and all of his fears and fury rush out to heap upon her.

Much as he wants her to lash out, to prove him right with another bolt of lightning, he's relieved when she just stands there with no expression, listening to his rant. Then she shrugs and makes some grinning quip about how she should have expected his reaction. His head aches and swims and almost lunges for her, but stops himself when he realizes that he does not know whether he meant to shake her or kiss her. It is unsettling, so he tries to shove coin at her instead.

"So you can starve to death with your new freedom?" she asks, arching a sardonic brow. That fearless _mage_ waves his pouch away even as her dwarf companion looks ready to cry. She folds her arms. "I'm planning an expedition. If you don't mind working with evil, frightening mages like me, the coin ought to be good." His eyes dart to the dwarf's vigorous nod.

"If you have need of me, I am at your disposal," he answers.

_He doesn't realize for years that he sealed his fate with those words._

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><p>The warriors she's met before are meatheads, most of them about half as smart as the blades they wield. He seems to know a bit about everything, though. He moves with grace and precision, slashing through enemies with surgical strikes that reveal an extensive knowledge of human anatomy. He charges forward without reservation, without hesitation. His fearlessness inspires her and she finds herself laughing in battle, thrilled at his courage. Each time she watches him fight, she can't help staring a bit at the flex of his taut muscles and the twisting of the lyrium on his skin and the silver sweep of his blade.<p>

When she first visits him to check in on him, he flings a bottle against the wall and she laughs. He looks confused, even angry at her reaction, but by the end of the night he's promising to work on his flattery and she has a warm flush spreading from her cheeks, down her neck and over her chest. So she keeps coming back, dragging him out of that musty mansion at every opportunity.

Though he accompanies her several days a week on mercenary work, Fenris insists on walking her home afterward and meeting her at her uncle's crumbling doorstep to walk her to the Hanged Man for their gang's weekly game of Wicked Grace. After a few months she comes to expect his presence, and paces restless around the small hovel, stopping to check her hair or straighten her robes when she sees a looking glass. Carver laughs at her and her mother gets a knowing smile, while Gamlen gets sour until he finds a bottle.

It comes as a surprise when he asks her why she never comes to his house, so much so that she blinks at him with large, owlish eyes for a moment before laughing. "Every time I try, I get winded halfway up the steps and have to turn back," she grins. He raises a brow at her, shaking his head as if to hide the barely-perceptible smirk crossing his lips.

After that, it becomes a tradition. He walks her to Wicked Grace, and the next night she walks up to his house and they sit drinking wine. He has a casual habit of breaking things at every opportunity, and when she comments that it looks like fun, he presses an expensive-looking, if hideous, vase into her hands. "Try it," he says, his gauntlets snaking away before her fingers can brush the metal. She flings the vase against the wall, laughing as it explodes into fragments, and concedes that it is fun. From that night on, they break things together, even if it's just the bottle of wine they drink.

Aside from that first night snarling at her for being a mage, they do not argue much. She's well-aware of how dangerous blood magic and demons are, and knows better than to trust such mages. So when she tells him that she is ready for the Deep Roads and that she intends to bring her brother and Anders and Varric, his furious reaction comes as a surprise. He calls her a fool and screams himself hoarse for almost an hour. When she leaves, her hands shake. They don't see one another until the morning that the expedition leaves. He glares at her through Bartrand's speech and her mother's attempt at intervention.

Before she can go, he approaches her and thrusts a bottle of wine at her. Their eyes meet for a second and as she starts to grin at him, he turns on his heel and storms off.

When Carver's struck with the Blight, she vows every manner of revenge on Bartrand that she can envision, including sending Varric to the Wardens so he knows how it feels to lose his family like that. Her friends offer to help her support him but she refuses, staggering under her brother's weight. The physical exertion distracts her from the pounding terror raging through her. She tries to be calm, to be as fearless as Fenris, but then the commander takes Carver away and she barely has a chance to hug him goodbye.

Once she's back in Kirkwall, after enduring her mother's tears and her uncle's unsubtle queries about the yields of the expedition, she marches up to Hightown with her spine ramrod-straight and doesn't stop walking until she stands at his door.

He lets her in and stares at her for a long moment before motioning her inside. She takes a few steps into the massive front hallway and, spying a horrific statue in the corner, lets loose all the rage and fear that's dogged her through the last few weeks. Lightning sears from her fingers and across her knuckles, and she shoots at the statue long after it's been melted into a lump.

Despite her display, he never says a word.

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><p><em>AN I deliberately re-did the 'Viciousness' intro. We'll see how smutty this one gets... ;-)_


	2. Initiation

Okay, looong chapter and a long week of finals that interfered with my updates (sorry, kiddies). For all the _Viciousness_ fans out there, this one is going to play with all the same things from that, but in super different ways. Just wait. It will be... interesting. *nudgewinknudge*

**Warnings:** language, jealousy, alcohol, double entendres, Isabela and Varric, Fenris is an overthinker

_**Additional Disclaimer:**_ Don't own _Fight Club_ either. But I do want to have Palanhuik's babies.

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><p>After her little lightning-throwing breakdown, Hawke feels embarrassed and uncomfortable around Fenris. She tries to continue their weekly visits, but every time she goes to his mansion she can see that molten pile of statue in the corner and it makes her think of Carver.<p>

When her mother's petition to the Viscount earns them the Amell Estate, she finds herself wondering what Carver would think of this statue, or that urn. She can imagine him sliding down the railing, though he outgrew that sort of game when he discovered girls. For the first several weeks living there she keeps checking for the muddy tracks of his boots on the carpet or to see scuff marks on the walls where he's jostled against the wallpaper. The day she realizes that she hasn't looked for those telltale signs of her brother, she realizes she can't look at that damned melted statue without crying and stops going to Fenris' house entirely.

For almost a year she does not hear a word about her brother, and finds herself going to Anders' clinic in place of Fenris' mansion, listening patiently to his rants against Templars because there are snippets of information about the Grey Wardens in there, tiny details that she hungers for.

"I hear your brother passed his Joining," the healer comments one night. He speaks in a quiet voice, reaching to take the bucket of water she's warmed up with a bit of fire. Her healing abilities are unimpressive; she can seal gashes and whatnot, but when it comes to internal organs or illness, she finds herself sorely lacking. At least she can take the patients with simple wounds off Anders' hands so he can see to the worst of the lot. For the most part, she spends her time heating up water and washing towels.

Relief floods through her and nearly buckles her knees. She reaches to grip one of the tables to steady herself. "How did you hear?" she asks.

Anders gives her an uncomfortable shrug. "I have my sources," he answers. He moves away then, to attend to a young boy with a thick, wet cough.

Hawke just stares at the floor, still shaking. When at last she leaves the clinic, she steps forward to give the other mage a hug. He stiffens for a second and then wraps his arms around her waist and squeezes her like a drowning man clutching a raft. Not sure what to make of his reaction, she gives him a shaky grin. "If you need more patients you could just say so, instead of breaking my ribs," she laughs as she pulls back.

He blinks at her and gives her a sort of grimacing smile. "Sorry," he says. His hands fall to his sides with a snap.

"Thanks for letting me know about Carver," she grins as she turns to leave. She laughs and wiggles her fingers as she gathers up her staff. "There will be no stopping Mother from feeding you now." As she jogs through the winding Darktown streets, she hears Anders' uneasy laugh behind her.

She's so thrilled at the news that she runs all the way to the Hanged Man and arrives out of breath, with flushed cheeks. Varric, Isabela and Merrill sit at a table in the corner playing cards. Rather, the rogues are attempting to teach Merrill and to cheat one another by making it look like the other one is attempting to cheat the Dalish mage. "Don't listen to these bullshitters, Merrill," Hawke says as she slides into an empty chair and steals Varric's mug.

The dwarf raises serious eyes toward her. "You might not want to drink that, Hawke," he says. "That's dwarven ale."

A sniff confirms that it is indeed a thick mixture of syrup, hops, and grain alcohol. Her eyes twinkle. "Oh, but I am the mighty Hawke, slayer of ogres and dragons," she laughs. "I have conquered the Deep Roads, saved the lives of countless innocents, and killed countless suicidal idiots. What's a little dwarven ale for a girl like me?"

Isabela smirks. "You ought to have a swig," she purrs. "I hear it quite diminishes one's inhibitions."

Before Hawke can summon a properly witty reply, a deep voice joins the conversation from behind her. She whips her head around in time to see Fenris, green eyes hidden behind his white hair and a faint smirk across his lips as he says, "Hawke will not be dancing naked with you, wench."

"Then perhaps _you_ ought to have some, elf," the pirate answers without missing a beat.

"When did you get here, Fenris?" Hawke asks, closing her hands around Varric's mug and looking up at the handsome elf. She gives him a crooked grin and holds the tankard up toward him. "You want some?"

He wrinkles his nose. "Ugh, no," he answers. "It smells of burning."

"Broody here's been sitting at the bar for a while," Varric interjects, laying down his cards on the table. It seems that the game is finished, because Merrill spends her time staring at his hand with large, blinking eyes and he makes no move to conceal it from her. He shoots a broad, smug grin at Fenris. "How's the house vinegar, by the way?"

"Better than that," Fenris replies, gesturing toward the ale. His eyes shift back to Hawke. "Don't drink it," he says in a quiet voice, his tone almost a plea.

"Drink it!" Isabela counters immediately. She cackles when Fenris turns a quelling glare toward her. Merrill, on the other hand, makes a squeaking noise and hurries off to the outhouse.

"Do not tell Hawke what to do," he snaps.

The pirate crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. "And why do _you_ get to tell her what to do, hmm?" she returns. Amber eyes sharpen on his face. "It's not like she listens to you, anyway. I can recall you bitching mightily for the entire time she was in the Deep Roads. Perhaps you ought to thank me for listening to your nightly drunken rants."

"Easy, you two," Varric says.

Before the argument can get any worse, or she can envision what Isabela did (or at least tried to do) to Fenris, Hawke lifts the mug and takes a long swallow. It _burns_ all the way down, searing her throat and chest and stomach from within. She coughs and shakes her head, shoving the ale back toward Varric with watering eyes. By the time the mug has scraped across the table, her head swims with the effects. "I think," she says, speaking very slowly to ensure she doesn't slur her words, "I think I can see why you drink this shit."

Varric chuckles. "You'd better not try to walk home alone," he says, eyes flashing from Fenris to Hawke.

Fenris makes an irritable noise. "I will walk with you," he grumbles, crossing his arms. He remains standing however, and refuses to meet her eyes when she looks up at him again. For such a hasty response, he seems very cross about it.

"Don't put yourself out on my account," she laughs, reaching up to pat his arm.

He flinches away and scowls at her. "I already am," he mutters. The comment earns him the attention of everyone at the table and he manages the impressive task of glaring at her without meeting her gaze head-on. "We should move on."

With a sarcastic snort she tosses her head and says, "Well, then." Her eyes drift around to Isabela and Varric, who seem to be engaged in some sort of elbow-jabbing competition on the other side of the table. Hawke sighs and stands, holding herself up on the edge of the table. "You know, it's really bad for my reputation to obey you in public," she comments absently, her tone ironic. As soon as the words are out of her ale-tasting mouth she realizes how they can be construed. The burst of bawdy laughter from her friends and the flush on Fenris' ears clue her in as well.

"Dammit, Rivaini!" Varric chortles, counting three sovereigns out and passing them to the pirate with a deliberate _clink-clink-clink_.

Both she and Fenris narrow their eyes toward the rogues and at the same time they demand, "What did you bet on?"

Isabela howls with laughter, eyes streaming and shoulders shaking. "Oh, wouldn't you like to know?" she giggles. Hawke wonders how subtle it would be to electrocute her in the middle of the Hanged Man and decides it's not worth the Templars' curiosity. Instead she settles for encasing the pirate's toe in rock that's firmly attached to the floor.

"It's not what you think," Varric snickers, waving a hand at the two of them. "_We_ know you're not... you know... but it's just funny to see how many slips you make."

Hawke tries not to choke at his announcement. "How many _slips_?" she echoes, puzzled. Perhaps not that puzzled, truth be told, but she's going to play innocent. She can't recall any instances aside from a few seconds ago when she put her foot in her mouth.

"Let's see," Isabela purrs, shuffling the cards. "The other day you said you needed help from him and his giant sword,'" she muses, eyeing Fenris as his jaw tightens. A smirk plays across her full lips. "Of course there are a lot of comments and speculation about the giant sword."

She wants to die. She wants to kill them and she wants to die as well. A multiple murder-suicide seems the only solution to this debacle. One quick mad burst of magic and then the Templars would have nothing to investigate but ashes. The humiliation is too much. And she told Isabela that she 'wonders if the sword is symbolic or compensatory' in _confidence_, dammit.

"And we can't forget when you told him to 'bend over and stay still' so you could climb up his back to get at that flower on the cliffside a few days ago," Varric adds. "Or how you bumped him with that book in the marketplace and told him you 'didn't mean to browbeat him with love sonnets.' That was actually kind of sweet." Hawke flushes. It happened five days ago, and she'd whirled with the book in hand so fast that she gave Fenris a bloody nose. Of course, she hadn't realized how close he was standing behind her, and if she had, she might not have moved at all.

"Please stop," Hawke mumbles. Her face is so hot it's a wonder she doesn't explode into flames on the spot. The elaborate death fantasy replays in her head and she decides whether or not to count Fenris among those she takes with her when she offs herself.

"Ooh," Isabela adds, "How about when you wanted to see that arrow wound in his shoulder and told him to strip the other day? And we can't forget about how you said 'I wonder what it feels like when he sticks his fist in you' yesterday." Ignoring Hawke's strangled cry of her name, the pirate continues, "Oh! And the day before you told him you liked having him behind you."

"The first rule of Girl Time is you don't talk about Girl Time!" Hawke yells, slamming her hand on the table and barely restraining small sparks of lightning. She can't look at Fenris, can't bear to see the fury or horror on his face, but she's aware he still stands there next to her, solid and unmoving, as if he can't react. Yes, killing everyone has to be the best course of action. There's absolutely no way that this can end well.

Varric grins at her. "Anyway, you've hit ten double entendres this week, and I didn't think you'd manage," he chuckles. "I underestimated you, Hawke. Well played."

Hawke splutters for a moment, red from her hairline to her toes, and a metal hand catches her elbow and gives her a brief tug that turns her around. Too tipsy to resist from that single gulp of the dwarven ale, she gives Fenris a miserable stare when his hand drops abruptly away. "My last request is to kill both of them," she says as she takes in his expressionless face. "Before you kill me in some horrible, bloody, organ-removing fashion."

He looks at her for a long moment. One of his brows rises, but otherwise his features remain schooled to perfect neutrality as he says, "We should go."

Helpless to do anything else, she nods and follows, trying not to notice Varric and Isabela whispering and laughing as Merrill returns to join them with suspiciously good timing.

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><p>Fenris glances at the silent mage beside him as they walk through Lowtown. She's usually so sharp-tongued and quick-witted, even when she's drunk. Her silence is almost uncomfortable. Questions burn through him, such as why would her companions believe her to be interested in him when she spends her time with that abomination in Darktown instead? Why does she expect death at his hands because of their mockery? Does this fearless madwoman <em>want<em> him?

The idea of being wanted by a mage sends a shiver through his spine- in Tevinter, mages look upon non-mages as less, considering them physically undesirable, especially slaves. Hadriana mocked his appearance at every turn, denying him meals to prevent him from getting too bulky with muscle and his body strained to leanness in an effort to preserve what little fuel it had. But this Fereldan apostate despises slavery and all it encompasses, and she, unlike anyone he's met before, looks at him as a person. She treats him as she treats everyone else, with wry jokes and clever jibes, without fear or apprehension.

When they get to the bridge into Hightown, Hawke shoves both her hands into her hair to hold it away from her face, marches to the edge of the bridge, and vomits over the side. She does it in such a strange, methodical fashion that he doesn't realize she's sick until he hears the retching. He approaches cautiously, stopping at arm's length.

"Ugh," she says, pushing herself upright with her hands tight around the side of the bridge. "Sorry about that. Dwarven ale doesn't agree with me. Maker, Mother will have a fit when she sees how drunk I am." Her bare knuckles are whiter than usual under the moonlight, and he marvels at how she looks so fearless and yet ethereal, inherently magical with wind tossing her hair back in place and silvery light illuminating pale features.

"Would you like to... sit in my house until you are more sober?" he asks. The wine he's drunk at the Hanged Man was so watery it's hardly affected him, and he promises himself that he means only to help a friend, to protect her from any harm she might come to in her state. He will _not _allow her fearlessness and loveliness to lull him into complacency. After all, what does a mage truly have to fear? The only reason the mages at the Circle were so bound was because of fear of the Templars; in reality they could crush their masters. Hawke does not fear Templars, talking back to them and killing them without hesitation when necessary. The thought that her fearlessness keeps her free makes him shiver. She is, after all, a mage, and he has seen all too well what kinds of madness and depravity their powers lead them to. The only thing that keeps the mages of Kirkwall in line is their fear- fear of the Templars, fear of the Chantry, fear of being caught.

Hawke glances at him and her eyes drift past him in a sorrowful expression. "I would like to, but... I don't know if I should," she murmurs. The only sign of her drunkenness is the tight grip of her hands on the railing of the bridge. A breeze rises and she tosses her hair back, facing forward again to stare up at the moon. The wind brushes strands of hair away from her face and he can see that her skin is smooth and without worry.

He remembers a statue he once saw in the Archon's palace, a piece from the man's private collection. To display items of beauty or grace in Tevinter is considered evidence of weakness, and it was an accident that Fenris saw this statue in the first place. It was a statue of a female Magister, her head tosses back and wind throwing her hair around, her expression one of fearless rapture and her carved eyes bright with danger. As she stands in the moonlight, Hawke reminds him of that statue, and he suppresses an urge to cringe in memory of the punishment he received for seeing it. She looks like that beautiful, fearless Magister, and like the statue he finds himself drawn to her, perhaps because she stands out as something so very different.

"Because of your propensity for making awkward comments?" he suggests, amused to see the hot flush creeping back over her cheeks. If she were not a mage, he would grasp her right there and draw her close. If she were an ordinary woman he would never have met her, or if he had, he would not be so drawn to her. No, it is her extraordinariness that makes her desirable.

"Maker, don't remind me," she mutters, covering her face with her hands. After a moment she looks at him sidelong. "Why _didn't_ you kill me for all of those things I said?"

Fenris blinks and attempts to school his features into something neutral. His throat feels too dry to speak and so he simply shrugs, his stomach knotting and his heart pounding. He realizes that he wants her to want him, that he longs to be adored by a noble mage, to have power over this woman who is the closest thing to a Magister he's encountered since leaving Tevinter, even if her lack of cruelty sets her apart. She has no fear, and that makes her more like one of them than one of the weak, cowardly mages of Kirkwall, like the abomination she spends her time with.

She closes her eyes and turns to face the breeze again. "If you aren't pissed, though, I might have to take you up on that offer to stay for a bit," Hawke sighs. She does not look at him and he's grateful for it, until her face turns with raised brows and a faint, familiar quirk to her lips. "Do you have any clean water at that place?"

Biting back a sigh, Fenris nods and gestures for her to follow him. "Of course I have clean water, " he snorts, walking the rest of the length of the bridge and hesitating to look back over his shoulder at her. Her eyes dart upward to his face, startled, and she gives him a fearless grin as she approaches and they walk alongside one another. He glances at her suspiciously and asks, "Why did you say all of those things?"

Now it's her turn to shrug and look away with false nonchalance. He can see the flush spread and watches, fascinated, as it moves down her neck and disappears into the neckline of her robes. "Why? Have you changed your mind about killing me?" she asks, pausing and spreading her arms out. She throws her head back as if embracing something huge and invisible and says, "Here's your chance. Make it quick."

He does not know whether to chuckle or to be irritated, and chooses the latter. He _is_ irritated. She's evaded his question and is now arching her back in such a way that her chest is the only thing he can look at, mocking him. Mages are all the same, even if they are different degrees of evil. "Stop acting like a child, Hawke," he snaps.

Her arms drop to her sides and she stares at him, fearless eyes flashing through the dark. "I don't have to come by if you'd rather I didn't," she says.

"That's not what I said," he answers, feeling more irritated now. He almost reaches out to grab her by the arm and haul her back, but he can't bring himself to touch her. It's not just the pain of his markings or the fact that she is a mage. Something else stops him, a momentary fog over his mind as his muscles tighten and his blood warms and races under his skin. He scowls at her. "Hurry up, woman."

For a few seconds he walks ahead of her, a faint smirk crossing his face as he hears her muttering things like, "Blighted grouchy elves and their big swords," and "-_hate_ him when he's right," and then she finishes her entire drunken, grumbled rant by saying, perhaps a bit louder than she meant to, "If he weren't so bloody handsome I'd fry him so his hair stood on end the rest of his bleeding life." He tenses as she catches up to him, not certain how to take the words. On the one hand, she has just admitted that she wants to shoot lightning at him, which was Denarius' favorite 'slap on the wrist' method of maintaing discipline among his slaves. Yet she also called him handsome. There was no mistaking the word: it was not a word of objectification but of admiration.

"You think I am handsome?" he repeats as they enter the Hightown Estates. He can't contain his smirk.

Hawke makes a noise as if she's being strangled and stops walking for a second. He turns around to stare at the flaming cheeks and wincing expression, just in time to watch the fire rage over her neck. At that moment he vows to make her flush more often, because he finds it compelling. After a pained second of staring, she tosses her head and tries to assume a neutral expression despite the still-crimson glow of her cheeks. "Oh, shut it, Fenris," she laughs, shoving his shoulder as she walks past him to the door of his stolen mansion. "You know you're good-looking."

Puzzled, he follows her inside, aware of how warm his own ears and cheeks feel at her praise. He leads her up to the lone room he inhabits, indicating a chair for her as he rummages on his shelves for a bottle of wine. He uncorks it with a pop and turns to see that she's stretched out on the heavy tiger skin rug at the hearth, lying on her stomach with her robes hiked up to her knees. Pale calves meet his stare and then she looks over her shoulder at him, grinning and tossing hair from her eyes.

"I believe that you are suffering from that phenomena that the dwarf refers to as 'seeing through the ale mug,'" he says, hoping to diffuse the flush on his own face that still lingers from her compliment.

"Well you do look a bit more glowing that usual," she chirps, now rolling to her back so that her hair spills over the orange fur of the rug and staring at him and the bottle as he stands there staring down at her. Her grin turns wicked and he feels a sinking in his stomach when she says, "But you are blushing bright enough to light half of Hightown."

Fenris takes a gulp of wine to stave off any further embarrassment and offers the bottle to her. "How is it that you do not appear drunk?" he asks, perching on the bench beside her.

She responds by sitting up and taking a longer gulp from the bottle. "I'm a mercenary, Fenris," she answers, eyes meeting his for a moment before they shift and become far away, staring beyond him. She sways very faintly, as if listening to some slow, distant music only she can hear. "I'm an apostate and a former smuggler and I clean more blood out of my clothes than most noblewomen are even aware the human body contains."

"You are an impressive woman, Hawke," he says, his voice very quiet as he takes the bottle back and draws on it once more. "I suppose I should not be surprised at how well you hold your liquor." He pauses and licks his lips, glancing away from her.

Hawke chuckles. "Anders told me that drinking a tea of embrium and spindleweed can help you keep your focus," she replies, and he feels tense at the abomination's name and the blatant reference to her time spent with him. "It works wonders when I have paperwork, or if I'm trying to listen to him talk. I didn't realize it would make me such a coherent drunk, though."

"Do you listen to him talk often?" he growls, not meaning it to sound so bitter. But the surge of pure terror that the other man's name invokes- a terror he can't explain or understand- makes him prickle. He takes another gulp of wine instead of passing the bottle to Hawke in a childish gesture of revenge.

When she rolls her eyes he wants to kick her, and his foot even draws back. "Maker, all he does is talk. All of his wild shit about dissolving the Circle and letting ever blood mage and idiot run around the countryside, terrorizing sheep and the like," she sighs. Suddenly her eyes light up and that sick, terrified feeling rises again. His fingers clench around the bottle so tight he hears a faint creak of protest from the glass. Hawke grins at him. "But he did tell me today that Carver passed his Joining. So all those hours listening to him ramble on about his manifestoes were worthwhile."

He stares at her, his mouth still in a tight line, and manages to work his taut jaw at last. "I am glad to hear it," he croaks.

"It's wonderful," she says, her eyes so bright now he can't look away from them. "My brother's alive, out killing Darkspawn and drinking ale with the Grey Wardens." She lunges up suddenly, her arms circling around his. Her face stops close to his for a second, searching his gaze, and then she moves to brush her lips against his cheek.

The touch of her lips on the faint stubble of his cheek (all the beard he can grow) sends a jolt through him, like the electricity she's so fond of using in battle, and he wonders if she purposefully or accidentally shocked him. It is pleasant, though, not a painful burn but more of an ache, a desire for more. Fenris has never been touched like this. People have attacked him, hurt him, tortured him, even attempted to seduce him. No one has ever shown him any sign of a tender touch, not to his recollection. He's too stunned to move and she draws back before he can react to her gentle gesture.

"Shit. I'm sorry, Fenris," she says, fumbling up to her feet. "I should... I should go."

Every nerve in his body screams for him to grasp her arm and pull her back as she grips the chair and makes her unsteady way from the room. But instead he asks, "Do you need me to walk you home?" He gets to his feet and finishes the bottle in a swig.

Her eyes flash in the firelight when she turns back in the doorway to look at him. A faint, fond smile that bears equal hints of fearlessness and irony crosses her lips. He thinks of the statue again, of the way she stood on the bridge. Fenris feels as if she must be using some sort of magic as he walks toward her, drawing close enough that he can almost feel that electricity emanating from her skin. It must be her magic, for such a feeling cannot be natural. Her head tilts toward her shoulder as she regards his approach and the smile grows. "Such a gentleman," she says.

Half in jest, half because he wants to know if it really is her magic sending such shocks through him, Fenris extends the crook of his elbow toward her in mimicry of the noblemen taking their ladies to parties or functions at the Keep. But she rests her fingers carefully against the metal of his gauntlet, far from his skin, and starts to laugh. He chuckles softly at her as they step into the night and that late spring breeze whips her hair around her face again. He's terrified of this fearless mage, yet he trusts her, else he would have killed her long ago.

The thought makes him pause in his thoughts and the short walk is silent. _He trusts her._

At her doorway, he stops and stares at her. He takes her hand in his metal gauntlet and touches his lips to her knuckle. Hawke grins for a moment and then her smile softens and she bites her lip, her cheeks pink in the dim when he squeezes her fingers and does not let go right away. What he meant to be a joke has become weighted and serious, and it frightens him all the more that his most trusted companion is a powerful mage, a Magister waiting to happen. And he wants her. What kind of madness does he suffer from? Does some twisted part of him still want to be enslaved, or is it the twisted part of him that wants to take out all of his fury and fear for the Magisters on her because she is the closest thing he's got right now?

Fenris feels his heart pound as he stares at her, lust and rage and self-loathing and terror coursing through his veins and his brain in an overwhelming jumble. He realizes that he has stepped closer, holding her hand so that the knuckles are caught against his metal chest plate, and that he's staring at her lips. He needs to leave.

"Goodnight, Hawke," he says, releasing her hand and darting off into the night.


	3. Imminent

Sorry for the length of time between updates! Long chapter ahead, though :-)

For the people who read _Viciousness_, we have the ball gown scene from Hawke's perspective, with an explanation for how she looks the way she does.

**Warnings:** AU Sebastian (no Chantry background b/c I don't have xbox live), angst, M rating imminent, Hawke has a very dirty mouth, some hot and heaviness

* * *

><p>It takes an entire two weeks after kissing her hand for Fenris to summon the nerve to go and see Hawke again. He is afraid that she will judge him, that she will reject his attention as unworthy or pretend it never happened, as though he meant it for a joke. But he's even more afraid that she might recognize it for what it is and respond with her own fearless affection, something that he is certain would overwhelm him. He certainly imagines what it would feel like for her to kiss him, can picture the way she would surge forward and her arms would wind around his shoulders. The idea that she would take control without a second thought is unnerving, but not as absolutely terrifying as the notion that he would lose control of himself in her arms, would willingly give her anything, like a slave for a master but even more so.<p>

But Hawke seeks him out by 'throwing' pebbles at his window in the middle of the night, rapping until he sticks his head and bare shoulders out and barks "Venhedis, woman, _what_?" His sleepy eyes blur and focus on her standing in the courtyard hidden by his walls wearing a simple dress that leaves her shoulders bare with no cloak on the warm summer night. From this angle, he can see enough cleavage to make him smirk down and rest his elbows on the window ledge. "Are you coming in, or am I coming out?"

She laughs and answers by conjuring a snowball in the middle of a the warm summer night and throwing it with surprisingly good aim right into his face. It seems she wants him to chase her and he finds himself vaulting out of the second-story window in just his leggings, struggling into his hastily-grabbed tunic and sprinting after her through Hightown's dark market. Fenris can't help laughing as she cackles with laughter and weaves around pillars until he catches her in his arms and their foreheads smack into one another with a painful crack.

"Bloody hard-headed elf," she laughs, clutching her forehead but not stepping away from him. "Just couldn't let me get away without a clonk on the head, huh?"

He stares at her and seriously considers kissing her. It must be the knock on the head. "_You_ hit _me_," he accuses instead, with a very faint smirk finding its way across his lips.

Her eyes flash and he sees them drop for a second to watch his smirk. Fenris can't tell for a moment if time has slowed or his heartbeat has sped up, the way the dark seems to thicken everywhere else but around them. Hawke's hand drops from her forehead to his shoulder, her fingers careful to remain on his tunic. He wants her to lean forward and he wants to lean forward, but neither of them moves at all. They both attempt to speak at the same time, though.

"Fenris, I-"

"Hawke-"

In the shoulder-baring dress he can see the flush on her face bloom up from between her breasts as well and he pulls his hands away from her waist and steps back before he does something he regrets. He gives her a little shove as he does it and she rocks back a step, her slippers whispering against the stones of the street.

"Bloody hell. I'm sorry, Fenris," she says, bringing a hand up over her eyes to rub her forehead. "I forgot about the tattoos, how painful they must be. I'm such a sodding idiot sometimes."

"You spend too much time with the dwarf," he mutters, and she laughs, surprised, her face lighting up for a second. He glares down at his arm and her laughter cuts off abruptly. "It is painful to use them," he admits, "But I am not accustomed to... kind touches."

"I wouldn't call head-butting you a kind touch," she grins, rubbing her forehead and brushing some hair away from her eyes.

He can hear the smile in her voice and his head snaps up from his arm to look at her. "Very true," he answers, though he feels their contact more in his still-tingling hands, where they rested against the slope between her waist and hips. "So, Hawke, why did you wake me in the middle of the night? To chase you through the streets until you could head-butt me?"

Hawke laughs again, tossing her head so that her hair whips around for a second before settling back in place. "Well, aside from my evil plan to head-butt you, I thought you might want to take a walk. You know. Work's been sort of scarce lately, and everyone's been busy and... oh, bullshit. I just wanted to go for a walk. Thought you might want to come with," she sighs. "I don't know. I haven't had my head on straight since Carver got taken. He was such an ass, but he's my brother and I love him, and now I might never see him again." Her fearless eyes are clouded with sad acceptance.

"Yet you may still see him yet," Fenris answers. He steps closer, not sure if he wants to touch her face or to hold her in his arms again. "Come on. We'll walk," he says, reaching out to take her hand. As before, the touch of her bare skin startles him, the sensation of humming electricity beneath her skin that makes his tattoos buzz in response. But it feels pleasant, rather than painful, and he wonders if it wasn't some foul magic that Denarius used to cause pain whenever he or Hadriana touched the tattoos or activated the lyrium for their evil rituals.

They get all of five steps before the glint of nearby steel and the whine of an arrow alert him to an attack. He shoves Hawke behind a pillar and whirls just as he realizes his sword sits at his bedside still. Fury lights his tattoos, that he should have allowed himself to get so soft in the time he's spent with her, just as dark clouds build overhead and jagged streaks of lightning slash through gang members.

Fenris swears and slams a lyrium-lit fist through the chest of one man and the throat of another. He needs a blade to be effective enough, and the men come running toward Hawke, who stuns them when they get too close and runs out of reach. She sticks out her hand and lightning lances from her fingertips to sear archers. A stray bolt hits one of the covered market stalls and it bursts open, armor clanging to the ground.

"Hawke!" he yells as an idea strikes him. "Break open the weapons stand!"

Another bolt of lightning flies by him just as one of the men freezes. Fenris keeps punching through men, trying to keep them away from her while avoiding their blades, a difficult task without his massive weapon. This time Hawke breaks open a trinket stand and amulets and rings pour to the cobblestones. "Maker damnit," she mutters. A blast of psychic force sends men reeling back from her and she runs up to the weapon stand, planting both palms against it. A second later the wood blazes up and cracks apart to reveal dozens of glittering weapons trapped behind the flames.

"Venhedis, Hawke," he snarls, tearing a man's throat out and running toward the stand. The flames die out an instant later and he grabs a sword, whirling to slice through four men at a time as she ducks the arc of the blade and slides behind him. He feels a tightening in the air and watches it waver into a well of gravity to hold opponents in place. Too easy, he thinks, and it is.

After the battle, Hawke leaves enough sovereigns to cover the cost of the sword and the damage to the shops, and they sprint back to his mansion before any of the Guard can catch them.

"We have to do that again," she laughs. And that is how it becomes a tradition of sorts to wander around Kirkwall in the middle of the night fighting gangs and destroying a fair bit of property. Hawke's magic is not subtle, and neither is his fighting style. The fights around the Lowtown Bazaar and the Hightown Market are always the worst, although they do manage to topple a statue in the Merchant's Guild Square one night (Hawke runs rather than pay for it and Fenris doesn't blame her) and to raze most of the gardens in Hightown over the course of the fall.

As his second year in Kirkwall stretches into a third, Fenris finds, to his relief, that Hawke spends less time in Darktown and more time wandering around Kirkwall with him. They hold hands at times, or he will scoop her up and carry her when she gets hurt or, as is more often the case, runs herself out of energy casting spells. He does not want to consider why it is such a relief to have the mage around, but he tells himself it is safest, in case she does become a Magister. She is so close- just a twist of her delicate fingers and the city would fall to her feet in thrall.

He can't pretend that her constant use of magic doesn't bother him. She mutters spells to reheat her tea, slams open doors with bursts of telekinetic wind when they prove too heavy, and once (though he can't say he didn't laugh) she froze Isabela's smallclothes in the middle of the Hanged Man. The lighthearted fearlessness with which she overuses her abilities makes him nervous, because she must remain vigilant at all times. So night after night he watches her, waiting for the moment her casual use of magic turns into something more sinister. He does not know why it terrifies him so much to imagine her becoming an abomination, and while he knows he would kill her, each time he sees her the idea terrifies him still more. Perhaps most frightening is the thought that he would hesitate to kill her if he thought for one moment that she might control it, the way Anders seems to.

One muggy night in early summer she convinces him to go up to the roof with a bottle of wine. Fenris, who has grown accustomed to acquiescing to her whims, revels in the chance to press her slim form against his body as he hauls them over the treacherous, decaying gutters and up to the flattest portion of the roof in the center. She remains very still, her cheek burning through the light fabric of his tunic, and he sets her down with more care than necessary, taking perhaps a bit too long to let go of her waist. Hawke catches his eye with her blazing stare and a cheeky grin, her face more pink than usual. He's glad for the season because it means that she's wearing a shift that's more modest than Isabela's but still enticing, especially when she passes him the bottle of wine while she kicks off her boots to go barefoot on the warm tiles, leaving her calves and knees bare as her arms and back.

"Ugh, it's like a Fifth Blight of mosquitoes up here," Hawke grumbles, flinging a bolt of lightning that fries several of the pesky bugs. After a string of more colorful swear words, she sets up a tiny glowing ball of electricity that hovers over their heads as they sit, attracting the bugs to die in a burst of light and a hissing death buzz.

Fenris settles down beside her, close enough to touch her yet not daring to as he uncorks their wine bottle. He suspects that the electricity he feels when they touch is very much an offshoot of her magic, and it always seems strongest after she casts a spell. Tonight, with the stars glazed by a thin film of high clouds and the heady scent of Hightown flowers lingering in the air, he does not want to touch her while that magical buzz is strong because he does not know if he will be able to hold himself back from her strange, enthralling spell.

"These bugs are not the more fearsome foes you have faced, Hawke," he says, daring to glance at her as he takes a sip of wine. The lightning above illuminates her pale cheeks with an ethereal glow and strands of her hair dance with the proximity to the electricity humming overhead. Her eyes seem to reflect the lightning back at him, brightening and crackling as they meet his.

She grins at him, her smile eerie and beautiful in the strange light cast by the foggy stars and the brilliant ball of lightning. "I don't know," she says, reaching to accept the bottle from him. "I do hate bug bites. It's difficult to act professional when you really want to just scratch between your shoulders like a Mabari."

He glances at her back, exposed by the shift more than her chest is, and smirks at her. "You might consider wearing a shirt that does not leave your skin so exposed," he says, and immediately regrets it when her grin falters. In an effort to make amends for whatever he's said wrong, he adds, rather lamely, "But you look... nice." He can't help that he glances at the slope of her chest.

Hawke laughs, reaching out to shove him with one hand. "You're leering at me," she snickers, and before he can protest she pauses and smirks, "Did you want to help me get dressed in the morning, Fenris?"

Though she asks it in jest, her tone teasing and laughing, it reminds him suddenly of Hadriana asking him the same question as she mocked him for being a lowly slave and chose to interpret his wary stares as longing. She would trail a hand over herself when she said it, emulating a desire demon, and though Fenris knows that Hawke is nothing like that slimy bitch, the words make him growl. "No, Hawke, I do not wish to play the part of your maid," he snarls, hunching forward and resting his elbows on his half-extended knees.

"You know that's not what I meant," she says, raising a brow at him. She takes a sip of wine at last and offers it back to him. After a thoughtful pause, staring at him as he glares and takes several long gulps of wine, she changes the subject. "The Arishok requested an audience with me tomorrow morning."

"Do you think it is wise to stay awake so late?" he asks her, grateful for the new topic of conversation. Their fragile half-relationship is not his favorite thing to discuss because he is uncomfortable with the new stir of unfamiliar emotions that grows each passing day. He does not know what to think and wishes he could understand why this fearless mage has drawn him in, why he feels for her what no other woman (including Isabela on a good day) has been able to provoke in him.

Her eyes don't quite meet his as she shrugs. "I can't sleep. I keep trying to puzzle out what he might want, why he's been sitting here in Kirkwall for so bloody long," she answers. "I thought I'd come ask you what you thought about it."

Fenris glances at her, stalling to mask his surprise with a long swallow from the bottle. She's serious. Hawke wants his opinion. He isn't used to her listening to other people's opinions, to the point where he is not the only one among their companions to walk away from an encounter fuming. Her strange moral code allows for stealing, smuggling and killing when necessary, but she never takes from those who need it more than she does, never enslaves others and in fact takes a sort of sadistic delight in killing slavers, and only kills those who deserve to die. She judges mages by how skilled and intelligent they appear, and whether it is wisdom or cunning that they abide by and determines which need to go to the Templars and which ought to be set free. He does not agree, but she does not listen. Above all, she does not care who she pisses off, who's toes she steps on, or how many bodies pile up in her wake. He has no doubt that if worse comes to worse with the Qunari-and it is only a matter of time, really-that Hawke will be able to handle it with her usual fearless strength.

"Things will only get worse with the Qunari," he says, passing her the wine. "But if the Arishok is willing to speak to you, then there might be some measure of hope."

"You really think so?" A large moth flies headlong into the lightning ball hovering over them and lights her face in a sudden flash. She has a faint grin over her wine-stained lips and her fingers brush his as she takes the bottle by the neck. He feels that tingling warmth and draws his hand back with some reluctance.

He smirks. "At the very least, I have faith that you could take him in a fight," he says dryly.

One of her brows rises ironically and she takes a very long gulp of wine, leaving it sloshing down to its latter half. It is a large bottle, too. "I don't really think I could dodge him that easily," she sighs. "Even with all the new force spells I've been practicing."

"You are not bad at staff-fighting," he offers. He knows he would win against her in seconds if they had a magic-free fight. "I could teach you a bit more, if you want."

Hawke gives him a crooked smile as she passes the bottle back to him. "Are you offering to beat the shit out of me?" she asks, pressing a hand to her heart in a melodramatic gesture and laughing. "Maker, Fenris, that's so _sweet_. What would I do without you?"

"You'd likely perish and burn," he answers, unable to prevent his smirk. She draws out his best humor, that's for certain. He gulps back another swig of wine and sets the bottle down very carefully before hopping to his feet. He takes a step toward her, extending his hand, and when she takes it he feels that delicious buzzing through his palm and lancing over his fingers as she laces hers through them. When she stands, the lightning ball follows, hovering over their heads.

"It's lovely up here," she murmurs, her hand still caught with his. Her eyes catch his and an ironic grin twists her lips. "All the debauchery and flaunted wealth of Hightown spread before our feet." The lightning above them crackles with bugs' deaths.

He raises a brow at her, not certain how to take her statement. Is she on the verge of becoming a Magister, of losing herself in power and wealth and glory? What would happen if she had a position of true power, a title to back up her wealth and skill? Already Hawke is a power to be reckoned with in Kirkwall, a force of tenacity and will that none have managed to subdue, in spite of many efforts to that effect. The Viscount seeks her council more frequently, and her presence is becoming requested more and more frequently at balls and social gatherings.

"Do you intend to make your proletariat stand by destroying more topiaries this year?" Fenris asks, struggling to keep his tone light. He sounds somewhat bitter even to his own ears.

But she laughs and squeezes his hand. "Perhaps. I may have to create a new fashion for destruction, though. We'll have to see," she says, turning to face him without releasing his fingers. Almost unwillingly, Fenris turns to face her as well. Her head tips back just enough that their lips and eyes are on the same level. He has a sudden urge to run the palm of his free hand along the exposed skin of her back and he quells it by clenching his fingers into a fist. Hawke tilts her head to one side and smiles a different sort of smile than the bold, fearless laugh or the wickedly clever grins. This smile curves her lips and shows her teeth but her eyes have a different glitter, one he's afraid to contemplate. A mage who wants him. But what does she truly want-a man or a slave? "Why did you get me on my feet, Fenris?" she asks, her voice breaking through his thoughts.

For a moment he fumbles for words, lost in the flickering eyes and the pale skin glowing under the lightning ball. "I meant to show you the view," he says, not sure what else to say.

Her eyes don't leave his as she says, "I'm enjoying it."

His heart pounds and he pulls his hand away from hers, stepping back before the moment can become anything more. He sees Hawke bite back a sigh before he whirls away from the sight of her, muttering under his breath in Arcanum. He paces several steps away before turning to face her again. "Your magic," he accuses, pointing at her, "Your magic makes my skin feel... I don't know. Strange."

Hawke narrows her eyes at him. "What do you mean by that?" she asks sharply. The lightning over her head flares and flashes out, leaving him blinking in the sudden dark.

He claws at the air for words that elude him. "It is because of your magic, woman," he says, unable to formulate anything more coherent. "Every time you touch me it feels like lightning against my skin."

She laughs without any humor, more sharp and bitter than the happy sound he's used to and he almost flinches from it. "You're a bloody idiot, Fenris," she says, shaking her head in a disbelieving arc and crossing her arms over her chest. "You think everyone who touches me feels electricity? You think I feel it whenever I touch someone?"

"It's because of my markings," he insists, stubborn.

"Why don't you go hold hands with Anders and find out for yourself if _magic_ is to blame," she snaps, turning on her heel and walking off the edge of the roof. He lunges after her, afraid she's jumping off, but sees her float down in a purplish magical bubble that pops on the pavement. He watches her walk off and doesn't realize until he turns back to the wine that she left her boots and stormed away barefoot.

Fenris sighs and sits on the roof without sleeping for the rest of the night. He wants to go to her, but he fears what might come of it.

* * *

><p>Hawke knows that she left her boots there and all, but she doesn't want to see Fenris for a few weeks. Varric brings Isabela and Merrill around the house when her irritable mood keeps her away from even the Hanged Man for a few days. They take over the library while her mother is out at the Chantry.<p>

"You're brooding over the broody elf, Hawke," Varric announces, settling into a chair at the fireplace. Merrill sits on the ground with her back against the chair and her head against the dwarf's stout knee, halfway to purring as his hand runs through her hair. Though Hawke would usually find this sight simply adorable, she finds herself irritated and jealous the they have the easy, friendly contact she can't seem to have with Fenris.

"And you've been practicing your opening lines," she shoots back, stretching out on the rug in front of the fire. It's risky business lying so close to the hearth, what with how many ashes Bodahn lets accumulate, but she doesn't care if she stains this old, worn dress from Lothering. Maker knows this thing has been chewed on by Mabari, vomited on by Carver and Bethany both (but she doesn't regret getting them both drunk for their eighteenth birthday), and has had to have the hem patched more than once thanks to magical accidents and her brother's roughhousing.

Isabela settles near her and unties the scarf she's tied her hair back with today. Since she has no intention of leaving the house, she tied it rather than use the tight array of pins that keep her hair so close to her scalp most people believe she has hair as short as a man. "Yes, sweet thing, he had a whole list of them this morning and was ticking them off as he tested them out on us," she says, her deft, jewelry-laden fingers combing out the fine dark strands before she sets to work braiding. "Why don't you do more with your hair, Hawke?"

"Yes, it's so lovely," Merrill pipes up. She crawls away from Varric to join the pirate in creating an elaborate, braided hairstyle. At least both women have tender, clever hands and it feels pleasant to have hands running through her hair, even if it's just a friendly touch.

Varric pretends to pout as Hawke looks at him in his chair. "I'm lonely over here, now," he says, for once seated higher than the others.

"I'll braid your chest hair, love," offers Isabela. Hawke can hear the wicked smirk in the pirate's voice and grins. How can she possibly be upset when she has so many wonderful friends ready to love her and look after her? Fenris can get all huffy and stupid and do his man-sulk thing to his heart's content.

"Maybe tonight, Rivaini," the dwarf laughs, waggling his eyebrows in a silly mockery of seduction. He pulls a large flask from some internal pocket of his jacket and takes a swig before tossing it to the women. A timid knock sounds at the door and Varric waves a hand. "Come in, come in, Bodahn! Put the pastries and things anywhere."

Hawke eyes him but withholds her comments when her manservant comes in with a large tray of pastries and tea cakes and his son follows with a tray of sandwiches. "Maker, thank you," she says, beaming at the dwarves settle the trays down by the fireplace. As they leave, Varric hops down from his chair to join the ladies, snagging a sandwich in one hand and eating half of it in one bite as a fresh flask materializes from his jacket. Hawke laughs at the dwarf. "You're supposed to chew, Varric," she says, rolling her eyes and reaching for a small pink-frosted cake.

"Don't you have to go to the ball at the Viscount's tonight?" Isabela asks, her fingers combing through Hawke's hair to scrape her scalp pleasantly. "What are you going to wear?"

"That's not til tomorrow," says Hawke, waving a hand in dismissal. With her mouth full of cake and raspberry filling, she adds, "It's some solstice thing."

"But, Hawke," Merrill says worriedly, stroking her hair and looking down with wide green eyes, "Today is the solstice."

"Oh, _shit_," Hawke yelps, struggling away from the pile of hair-braiding and love on the hearth. "It starts in two hours!" She looks around the room with wild eyes, then down to her friends, pushing a hand through her loose hair and snagging her fingers on a braid in her panic. "What am I going to do?"

Isabela stands up with her usual languid grace, draping her arms around Hawke's neck to purr, "You're going to get ready, and then you're going to go to this ball and find some handsome noble to ravish you in the cloak room." At Hawke's rolled eyes she says, "Or you're just going to get that Seamus fellow to fall madly in love with you so you can inherit his wealth and title and a bit of power over Kirkwall."

"Maker, Isabela," she mutters, but she doesn't resist when her friends lead her upstairs. The women shove her into a bath while Varric goes to choose the perfect outfit. Hawke trusts the dwarf's sense of fashion, which runs toward tasteful opulence, over the pirate's scandalous clothing choices or the high likelihood of being draped in obscene amounts of ruffles and bows if Merrill chooses a dress. When her hair is washed and her skin scrubbed so thoroughly she's sure the top layer is missing, the ladies lead her back to her room, where the dwarf has laid out a gown and stands beside it muttering with a pair of shoes in each hand.

"Ah, Hawke," says Varric, turning and indicating the deep red silk of the gown with a broad hand. "Which shoes do you like?" he asks, lifting a pair of ornate red-ribboned Orlesian slippers in his left hand and a simple pair made of gold fabric.

"Gold," she says, snatching the dress off the bed and hurrying behind her changing screen. Isabela follows with a corset in hand. "No, Isabela," Hawke says, backing up against the wall. But the pirate won't listen, and after a brief but losing struggle, Hawke surrenders to the corset and tries not to whimper as her lungs are crushed by whalebone and ribbon.

"There," announces Isabela, turning her around and giving her a lascivious wink. "Now your tits look huge." She leans forward and purrs into Hawke's ear, "You know, if you don't find anyone at the ball to your liking, you ought to just go 'round to see Fenris when you leave."

Her cheeks flame up, because she _was_ thinking about it. "Isabela!"

An hour later, Hawke walks down the stairs to meet her mother for the ball. She feels odd, draped in silk with her neckline plunging to reveal Isabela's handiwork with the corset. After seeing the effect the corset had, Varric insisted that she wear the blue gown instead, and so now she's clad in a vivid sapphire shade to match her eyes with darker blue slippers winding ribbons up her calves and heels so high she is forced to take slow, delicate steps unless she wants to land on her ass. All of this has been topped off with simple silver jewelry and a froth of curls laced through with flowers that Merrill cast a spell on to keep them alive for the night. Until she felt that spell, Hawke never considered that necromancy might apply to plants.

"You look lovely, dear," says her mother as she comes down the stairs. Leandra is dressed in a high-collared dress with a simple cut and and intricate pattern of leaves and birds sewn in dark gold thread over honey-colored silk.

Hawke pauses, staring at her mother and wondering how much she has missed the life of a noble in Kirkwall. "Thank you, Mum," she says, leaning forward to plant a kiss on her cheek, "You look fabulous, too. I'll bet you get asked to dance more than I do."

Her mother rolls her eyes and chuckles fondly. "You are a terrible liar, Marian," she says as they walk outside. They live too close to the Keep to take a carriage, and so the women walk arm-in-arm across the courtyard and up the high steps, the trains of their gowns trailing behind them.

"That's because Dad was too busy teaching me how to summon lightning and fire and whatnot to worry about teaching me how to lie," Hawke gives her a cheeky grin. They take the steps slowly, because her mother has developed a touch of arthritis in her knees and wrists, and all of the bloody steps throughout Kirkwall don't help it any. "But he did such a good job at it that if anyone calls me a liar, I can always blast them to smithereens."

Leandra tries to stifle her giggle, but then again, if she hadn't had a sense of humor she never would have married Malcolm Hawke. "So what about that elf you're always hanging around with?" she asks, and Hawke sees a wicked glint in her mother's eyes that she's worked for years to master. "Fenris, right? He's very handsome. And you can't fault his politeness."

She snorts. "Fenris isn't polite, Mum. Only when you're around," she says. They've reached the top of the steps and she pauses before Seneschal Bran can sneer and announce her.

"I do hope that doesn't mean what it sounds like," her mother comments, arching a brow. She gives Hawke's arm a squeeze. "But I'm glad you found someone you're fond of. I see the looks you two give each other. Like something out of your dwarf friend's romance novels."

"Mother!" Hawke splutters, her cheeks warm. But Leandra only chuckles and tugs her on into the ball.

The Keep has been transformed by the celebration. Long tables rest just in front of the chairs lining the walls for elderly guests or those who want to talk. People mill about to the soft strains of a string quartet on the first level, eating fine Orlesian hors d'ouvres and drinking champagne. Hawke snags a glass from a passing server and glances around to see if anyone she knows is about. A steely-eyed man with shoulder-length gray hair approaches and after a brief introduction, Messere duPuis leads Leandra off to dance on the next floor.

"Serah Hawke!" cries an enthusiastic young voice. Hawke looks up to see the Viscount's son, Seamus, smiling at her from the top of the stairs. Since she 'rescued' him from the Winters and 'avenged his friend's death,' the boy has taken to writing her letters that verge on adoring. She has no doubt that her invitation came at his insistence, though his father would have invited her anyway.

"Seamus," she says, holding her skirt away from her shoes so she can ascend the stairs without making a public spectacle of herself. "How are you doing this evening? Didn't invite any Qunari to this shindig, did you?"

He chuckles nervously and flushes, taking her hand and kissing her knuckles with wide eyes. "My father and the Seneschal would never hear of it. But you look very lovely tonight, Serah," he says, still holding onto her hand with shy eyes. She has to give the boy credit for his attempt at being smooth, though Seamus is younger than Carver and has nowhere near the easygoing way about him that her brother uses to win over scores of girls. For a moment she wonders if Carver is out courting some fearsome Warden warrior in between darkspawn battles.

"You've had a good turnout," she comments, withdrawing her fingers gently and turning to survey the room. "Every noble in Hightown seems to be out tonight."

Seamus chuckles. "And a few from Orlais, too," he adds. Startled, Hawke laughs at his joke and he flushes again, standing beside her. He starts to wring his hands and then stops himself, as if he can recall being admonished for such an unseemly gesture in the past. "Would you care to dance?" he asks, not quite meeting her eyes.

"I would be honored," Hawke answers, managing to prevent an ironic quirk from rising to her lips. She takes Seamus' proffered arm and lets him lead her to the ballroom, where banns and arls dance with their baronesses and arlessas in swirls of colorful silk and flashes of gleaming gems. It takes a bit of getting used to dancing on her heels, and after a dance she begs off, claiming that she'll make a fool of herself to keep wobbling about like she is. Though he seems disappointed, Seamus lets her totter over to the chairs on the side before he's swept away by some noble matron hoping to marry her daughter to him.

"Did Varric pick the shoes?" asks a familiar voice, and Hawke grins at Aveline as the Guard Captain circulates over to stand near her. "He has a morbid sense of humor, that dwarf."

Hawke laughs and looks at her friend, in full ceremonial plate armor that glints under the light of candles and chandeliers. "You look quite stunning," she says to her friend, struggling to her feet. "Though I have to admit, I half-hoped to see you bossing people about in a dress."

Aveline rolls her eyes. "Hawke," she says in her flat, warning voice.

"What?" Hawke asks, spreading her hands and grinning. "It's not as if it's a crime to imagine you wearing a dress. You didn't get married in plate armor, did you?" She raises her brows and watches her friend flush. "Besides, I think wearing a dress might be a better way to get Donnic's attention than sending him copper marigolds, don't you?"

With another flush, Aveline moves on her route patrolling the room, but Hawke hears a chuckle from the guardswoman and grins at the sound. She watches the dancers and nurses another glass of champagne for a bit, until a young man in white armor sits down beside her. Hawke can't help glancing at him and taking in the wavy auburn hair and piercing eyes and realizes with a start that she's staring at the handsome man next to her.

"You are Serah Hawke, are you not?" asks the man. He has a pleasant, lilting Starkhaven brogue accenting his smooth deep voice.

She blinks and tries not to flush. "I am," she says. "And you are?"

The young man gives her a half-bow in his seat, all courtly manners and flowing grace. "I am Sebastian Vael," he says not offering an elaborate title but instead reaching to take her hand and kiss her knuckles like Seamus did earlier, like Fenris did that once. Unlike the elf, Vael doesn't flee after doing it. He stares at her for a second. "Would you care to dance?"

"I'm not very good," she confesses, lifting the hem of her skirt to reveal her shoes. "These things aren't helping, either."

He utters a melodious chuckle and stands, extending his hand toward her. "Then I shall steady you," he says, giving her a rakish wink and tugging her to her feet. Vael draws her onto the dance floor and holds her too close, his hand on her waist tight enough to prevent any wobbling on her part. Hawke enjoys it, being so close to a handsome man as he swirls her around the ballroom, his eyes steady on hers and his mouth set in a smirk. He leads her through several dances until, winded, they step away from the dance floor with champagne and stroll out to the gardens.

"You are a much finer dancer than you led me to believe, Serah Hawke," he says, eyes crinkling with mirth. His arm drapes carelessly around her hips as they walk into the gardens. "And word has it you are a formidable woman, a force to be reckoned with in Kirkwall." He steers her into a small niche, hidden from the light of the ball by tall hedges and flowering trees around a bench. The moon peers down from above the walls of the Keep, lighting the alcove as Vael draws her to sit on the bench with him. Hawke doesn't resist, enjoying the gentle touch and the closeness that she can't seem to have with Fenris. Thinking of the elf makes her glance away from Sebastian for a moment, not wanting him to see her guilty expression.

"I've only done what I had to do," she answers, but her head feels heavy and her chest aches when he reaches out to touch her cheek and turn her face back toward him.

"You have seen much pain," he murmurs, staring into her eyes. She wishes his eyes were green, that his accent was Tevinter, that his ears were pointed and his fingers tracing along her jaw were banded with lyrium lines. His other hand finds her waist. "But your suffering has made you stronger, and now you are rapidly becoming the most powerful woman in Kirkwall."

Suddenly he leans forward, just as she realizes that she doesn't want him to. She turns her head and wriggles free of his grasp. Surprised, he lets his hands fall to his sides, staring up as she rises from the bench. "I'm sorry, Serah Vael," she says, shaking her head. "You are a wonderful man and a lovely dancer, but this is just... it's too fast." She turns and flees, darting through the garden on unsteady heels, holding her skirt in both hands. Her many visits to the Keep have taught her the ins and outs and she doesn't go back inside, instead winding through the garden and out into the Hightown Estates, only a short jog to Fenris' house. She trips on the hem of her skirt and almost falls, hearing a tearing noise, but she rights herself and hurries on, gathering more of the fabric in her hands.

"Fenris!" she calls, staring around the foyer of his house feeling dizzy from the champagne and the dancing. Damn that bubbly Orlesian wine, it goes straight to her head. She looks up as he emerges from his study dressed in only his tunic and leggings to stare with glassy, drunk eyes.

"Hawke," he says, watching as she hurries up the stairs toward him. She feels the force of his eyes more strongly than she felt that Sebastian fellow's arms around her when they danced. Her heart thumps so hard she can feel it in her stomach. "What are you doing here? And why are you wearing... that?" He indicates her dress with the sweep of a hand.

"I was at the ball at the Keep," she rushes to speak, feeling out of breath as she stands in front of him, still holding her skirt in taut hands. "And I was dancing with this handsome fellow from Starkhaven and then he tried to kiss me and I realized I didn't want him to kiss me and I ran off over here," she blurts out and then winces at her own words.

His dark brows rise to hide in his pale hair for a second, then flash down and contract as his eyes narrow. "You danced with some handsome fellow?" he asks, his voice hard. He sneers. "Have you found someone titled enough to lift your skirt for, then?"

She slaps him across the face. "You jealous prig," she snaps, glaring back at him. "It could have been you dancing with me and taking me out into the garden, but all you want to do is mope and sulk and accuse me of electrocuting you every time I touch you," she yells. So much for that giddy champagne-induced excitement. All of her energy is now on being furious with him for being so bloody frustrating and frightened of her. "Don't you know by now that I would never hurt you?"

"You just slapped me," he points out, his jaw tight and angry. There's an imprint of her hand against his cheek and she's struck by a sudden guilt at the sight of it. He takes a step closer and grabs her wrist, gripping until she gasps at the pain. "And has it never occurred to you that I might hurt you?"

Hawke glares at him. "If that's supposed to scare me, you should know better," she answers.

For half a second he stares at her and she stares at him. His grasp on her wrist loosens until it is no longer painful, though his fingers are too steely to resist. Time stands still in his green eyes and then they are kissing. She doesn't know if he pulled her to him or if she just stepped into his arms but his mouth on hers is hot and furious and desperate, his lips pressing hers with enough force to bruise and his tongue battling hers into submission.

He presses her back to the wall and pins her hands over her head with his strong hand wrapped around both wrists, his hips driving against hers so she feels his hard length. Fenris groans into her mouth when she gasps and his other hand moves from her waist to cup her breast through the fabric of her dress. Hawke arches against his palm and wraps her legs around his waist in a rustle of silk and ribbons, trusting his strength to keep her aloft. He growls and tears his mouth from hers to nip at her neck, still keeping her hands trapped as he unlaces the front of her dress and brushes his tongue along a sensitive patch at the corner of her neck and shoulder. She hisses his name against his pointed ear as his fingers brush across her nipple, heat pooling in her stomach and groin as he grinds their hips together again.

"Marian!" cries a horrified voice and Fenris leaps away from her. She yanks her lacings closed and catches her feet on the floor with a clatter, staring flushed and guilty at her mother.

"Mother, I swear on Andraste's ass that I've a good explanation for this," she says, hurrying down the stairs. "I just need a few moments to think it up."

Leandra scowls at her. "Blasphemous cursing isn't going to help you out of this one," she says. "I was worried about you! I saw you run off with the Prince of Starkhaven and knowing _his _reputation, I thought the worst so I came here to get your friend's help looking for you and, well, who would do such a thing in a hallway?"

"Bollocks, Mum," she mutters, following her mother as they leave the house. "I'm sure you and Da got to some far more risky places than this." She glances over her shoulder to see Fenris standing and staring after her with a bewildered expression, his eyes still heated and his hair disheveled as he watches her leave. Hawke bites her lip and hopes that he comes looking for her later tonight.

But Fenris doesn't come knocking on her window late at night, and she falls asleep alone, staring out at the lights of Hightown with her kiss-bruised lips pressed together in thought.

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><p><strong>AN:** I originally wanted to call this chapter: 'Fenris hits a double' (that's second base to anyone who doesn't know baseball). Then again, if we're going with the baseball metaphor, I'm thinking Leandra got him out. By smacking him with the ball while he was about to land right on base.


	4. Irreparable

And the smut has arrived. Many thanks to the reviewers.

This story is more political than _Viciousness_ for sure, and I'm having lots of fun playing with the magic and the Magister thing with Fenris. Anyway, the long awaited double-whammy chapter is here, with the POV reversal and, of course, the smut you've been waiting so patiently for.

**Warnings:** Smut, character death, violence, bondage smut, more violence, language, some political stuff

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><p>Lightning lances around Hawke in every direction, the storm a wild frenzy that slams into foes as they try to get through it, bolts shifting and redirecting at her whim. More electricity gathers in her palms and she flings it at the shades and the slavers alike, burning it through them until it arcs from one enemy to the next in a chain. She glimpses Fenris, his greatsword tearing through their opponents and flinging body parts away, his face covered in blood and his tattoos glowing. Arrows rain from the sky, sparking into flame as they strike enemies and she hears Varric shouting jokes at her through the din, and Aveline's voice demanding the attention of the monsters battering at her shield, which seems to shift around her and be every place at once, blocking multiple opponents until Fenris can hack them apart from behind.<p>

A slaver rushes toward her, a mean fellow with a large axe, and she freezes him in place, her palm extended to face him. Her fist closes as pure physical force crushes him in place, shattering the ice and crushing the man beneath with a wet noise. Several shades attempt to surround her as they make their way through the lightning and she sends icicles into them just as Fenris appear with his greatsword slashing through them in a burst of ice and demonic ash that makes her turn her head aside to avoid getting hit by debris.

She sees that telltale flicker in the blood mage's barrier and twists the energies apart with a flick of her wrist, her other arm jerking to point at Hadriana as a huge stone rips from the floor to pummel the Magister before a new barrier can be cast. "Fenris," she yells, aware of the fact that her face is bleeding from a gash on the cheek and that the hiss of demons is strong in this cavern and that with just one thought, just one promise, she could make that woman's blood boil in her veins.

Then Fenris swoops down and takes the choice away, backhanding Hadriana with such force that blood sprays from her mouth. Hawke shivers at the sight and reallizes that she feels a clench of excitement, even arousal to watch him treat the other mage so brutally.

"Wait," the Magister begs, "I have information you want! Don't kill me."

Fenris sneers. "I already know where Denarious is," he says, his sword creeping closer to her throat. Hawke sees his foot pressed over her staff and grits her teeth at the growing hiss of demonic activity. "I would rather kill you."

"You have a sister," Hadriana blurts, desperation mixing with cunning in her voice. "I'll tell you about her, her name and where she lives, if you spare me."

Hawke snorts and turns away from the pale, insidious eyes, leaving Fenris to have his revenge. It doesn't surprise her when he promises the Magister life and kills her once he has the information he wants. She would do the same in his place, and a surge of savage joy grips her when she sees the final pulse of Hadriana's disembodied heart. But when he whirls away from the corpse with venom in his voice and fury in his eyes, she grabs his shoulder, willing to endure any consequence he has to offer.

"She's dead, Fenris," she says, and sound seems to return in a sharp, shrill wave that hits her like a punch. "She's dead just like she bloody deserves to be." Her fingers skate around the pointed metal of the gauntlets to find the soft material of his tunic and for one second he remains still under her fingers.

Then he turns back toward her. "Do not _touch_ me, Hawke," he shouts. "Don't comfort me or pretend to understand." One of his hands gestures at the dead witch as he snarls and screams in her face, then his sharp gauntlets wrap around her shoulders and prick through the fabric of her robe. She tries not to be hurt or to be furious but he holds her so close and his voice cuts through all of it, echoed by the taunts and murmurs of the demons in the room. "You still can't see that magic is a curse! It ruins everything it touches." As if to emphasize his point, he gives her a shake and a single spark of suppressed lightning snaps against his wrist. With a snarl, he draws his hand away and grips her hair instead, pulling her face close. "Don't you see?"

Hawke draws breath for a tirade and he shoves her back so suddenly she stumbles. Aveline's metal-plated hand steadies her as Fenris shoots them all a look that is half rage, half guilt, all shame. "No," she says, narrowing her eyes at him. "Magic doesn't ruin anything. Fear and idiocy are what ruin everything." Her teeth grind together in the back of her jaw as she forces her concentration to keeping herself sane against the whispers that have grown to murmurs to hissing and buzzing and laughing.

"All that matters is I finally got to crush that bitch's heart," he sneers, and as if that has deflated all the hate in him and thereby all the energy, he slumps and sighs, "I need air."

She's left staring at the last point where his back was visible for a second after he's left. Then she shakes her head slowly and says, "Why do I even bother?" Her eyes shift first down, to Varric, then to Aveline. Both give her near-matching grimaces of sympathy and she sighs. "Let's go to the Hanged Man and drink a round before I try to get home."

"Hawke, you know you have to check on him," Aveline comments. She sighs and shrugs. "But maybe you ought to give him an hour or two to calm down."

"I'll buy," says Varric.

The three of them go to meet Isabela and Merrill there, and after recounting the story of the magister's death with help from several colorful embellishments on Varric's part, Hawke feels so depressed at Fenris' absence that she abandons her half-drunk beer and charges out into the city alone to search for him. When his mansion proves empty she tries searching through Lowtown, even venturing into the Alienage. One at a time, her companions take shifts looking with her, leading her through every part of the city until Isabela, the last to go with her, announces that it has grown too late to look for him anymore and that the only thing she can do is get some rest.

"Sleep, sweet thing. I'll see you in the morning," the pirate says, looping an arm around her shoulders and kissing her cheek. "He'll be back before you know it," Isabela calls as she saunters off toward the Blooming Rose.

She goes home and takes a bath, scrubbing away the filth of the encounter and the last vestiges of those demonic whispers with hot water. When she gets out of the tub and wanders into her bedroom in a filmy silk robe, he's sitting there in front of her fireplace staring at nothing. Fenris stands when she steps into the room and walks toward her. Hawke holds her ground, meeting his eyes and crossing her arms.

"I owe you an apology," he says, his gaze falling to her arms and then to the ground. "I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

"I'm not going to pretend I understand what it's like to be a slave, Fenris," she mutters, slumping against his apology with her hand holding her robe shut. She expected to continue yelling, not this. "But Andraste's sacred asscheeks, you can't say that sort of shit to people who are trying to help you."

His eyes narrow. "And you shouldn't burn people," he answers, holding up his singed gauntlet. He's standing close enough that she can smell him, can feel the lyrium buzzing in his veins.

"Let me see," she says, reaching out to grasp his forearm with her free hand, well away from where she shocked him. Her palm lands against the raw lyrium lines and she gasps as they flare to light under her hand, filling her with a strange combination of strength and desire and energy that goes far beyond the bitter rush of a potion. The sensation engulfs her for a moment and then she's staring in his eyes as he presses her against the wall, his hips and mouth close. Guilty eyes meet hers as she thinks of the night they kissed and as he starts to draw back she steps forward, unable to contain her grin.

It's meant to be a tender kiss, a gentle touch of the lips to calm him from the tension of the situation but his lips catch hers again and again. Then their tongues meet, a slow exploration of one another's mouths as her hands trail up his arms and she revels in the feeling of his tattoos igniting. She slides his gauntlets off and he traces her back and hips and waist with his fingertips, his mouth not leaving hers as she moves on to his shoulder pauldrons. In bits and pieces his armor falls away, and she kisses the red mark on his wrist as he slides her robe away from her shoulders. Hawke's hands rove across his skin, following the lines of his markings and trailing small sparks of lightning in the wake of her fingers. He groans when the electricity shivers along his spine and his hips jerk against hers.

Fenris lifts her in his arms and carries her to the bed. They fall against the sheets, tangling their arms and legs together, hands and mouths brushing over new skin with growing frenzy. Lightning and lyrium light the room better than the candles, bathing them in an electric glow. She gasps when his lips close over her breast and he growls when her tongue traces the tip of his ear and trails electricity. She laughs when he swears at her underclothes in several languages and he smirks when she gets her hands tangled in the laces of his leggings.

He pulls her into his lap until their chests press together as he pushes inside of her and Hawke lets her head fall back and a ragged moan escape her mouth. Fenris takes it as encouragement and thrusts as she arches along his length. His hands twist into her hair, pulling her face to look at his. Green eyes stare into hers, lit by sparks from the lightning dancing between their skin in purple-white arches.

"Please," she whispers, pushing her hips against his, and he drives into her, kissing her cheeks and eyes and neck and mouth. His hands trace over her, finding new places to make the electricity sizzle between them and she finds herself moaning his name too soon, her muscles tensing in waves as she clings to him. Then he picks up the pace, gasping and shuddering a minute later, thrusting deep. His tattoos light again, and in the sensitive aftershocks of her climax she finds herself clenching and swearing, drawn in by the combined force of his orgasm and the pulse of lyrium-electricity shooting straight through her core and every nerve.

No sooner have they collapsed together than he starts moving again, hissing her name among a string of Tevinter curses into her ear. His hands and mouth explore her again and again, their bodies writhing together over the night until she feels drunk with the pleasure. The candles die and the fire sputters out as she moans, lost in flashes of his hands tracing her ribs up to her breasts with his sweating chest pressed to her back as he seizes inside of her; his face staring up at her with pleasure threatening his self-control as his hands cradle her hips over his and lightning crackles across his chest where her palms press flat against it; the pressure of her headboard against her shoulders as he buries his face in her neck and gasps.

When she wakes up, after finally wearing down to a pile of sleepy, tangled limbs, the absence of his warmth is the first thing she notices. She sits up and sees him standing in front of the fireplace, fully dressed. A brilliant red Amell crest hangs on his belt, the color catching her bewildered eyes before she meets his gaze. And he looks ashamed, guilty, even defeated. It makes her stomach clench.

"Please tell me you're about to fix me breakfast in bed," she grins, tossing her hair from her eyes as nonchalantly as she can manage. She fishes her robe from the floor and ties a red scarf around the waist to hold it shut. "I'll have eggs and toast. And some coffee, of course."

"Hawke."

She shuts up instantly, not wanting to babble on with a bad joke when both of them know what's about to happen. "So this was more of a one-night thing, then," she sighs, standing up from the bed and letting her hair hang over her eyes for a moment rather than look at him.

"It's not that," he says, his voice ragged, and his cool gauntlet scrapes along her jaw to tip her chin back and force her to look at him. "I want to stay, but I can't. This... this was better than anything I could have dreamed." His green eyes look pained, agonized. "But I am not ready for this."

"Is it the markings, then? Or the lightning? Did it... hurt?" she asks, raising her brows. She wants to cross her arms, to put some distance between them, but cold metal fingertips against her chin prevent it. As she stares up at him he shakes his head very faintly. Hawke settles on a cheeky grin instead, trying to summon that wicked gleam to her gaze. "I guess I mistook your reactions."

"My memories have started returning," he says, pulling back a step and releasing her. A hint of accusation lingers in his eyes and tone as he adds, "You were using magic."

Hawke narrows her eyes and crosses her arms. "So were you."

"I did not receive these markings by choice," he snarls, lifting a hand to motion toward her. "Your magic activated them, not any conscious choice I made."

She takes a step closer, raising one hand to point at his chest and withholding the spark she desperately wants to zap him with. "I didn't ask to be a mage, either. My parents didn't ask for me to be a mage. At least you got to have a life before magic took it away from you," she snaps. "And for the record, I did nothing to activate your tattoos. They didn't react to my magic until after _you_ lit them up."

He snarls and shoves her back. Startled, she stumbles against the bed and lands seated, staring up as he looms over her. "You caused this," he growls, gripping the front of her robe and giving her a brisk shake. "You use your magic too often and too carelessly. You do not care about the consequences. You do not bother to control yourself, to control your behavior or your attitude or your magic. You burn your neighbors gardens and set gangs on fire in the middle of the street and you expect that this will never cause any problems. And now you have done something to me to bring back my memories and _this is too much_!" As his voice rises to a shout he shakes her harder and harder, until a loud rip silences him and he steps back with a large chunk of the front of her robe in his hand.

Before she can cross her arms to hide her breasts, his hands shoot out to grab her wrists, pinning them to her sides on the bed. "What, do you plan to tie me up so you can have me without me ever being able to touch you?" she sneers, tipping her face nearer to his. It's not difficult, considering that he's standing so close to hold her hands down.

Fenris' breath hitches audibly and he stares at her a second, eyes traveling down her body, before he lunges forward, kissing her and tackling her to her back. Hawke gasps when he straddles her hips, feeling his hardness press against her belly as his knees pin her wrists where his hands were. He breaks the kiss and stares down at her as he unties her sash. The frigid metal of his gauntlets brushes up her stomach and back down as he runs the back of his knuckles from her nipples to her hips. Heat gathers in her stomach as he takes her hands, so gentle and careful as he winds the sash around her wrists and binds them together, his eyes never leaving hers. She could break through the delicate sash a thousand ways, with a single thought, but she doesn't resist him. He lifts her bound hands over her head and leans down to trace her collarbone with his mouth, one of his metallic hands gripping her hips to hold them steady.

"Not a bad idea, mage," he murmurs in her ear, and his teeth dig into the flesh of her earlobe. She cries out and then catches her breath when she feels the pointed tip of his gauntlet running a slow track up the inside of her thigh. The thought of pain doesn't frighten her, but she does not move because she doesn't want to cause it to herself. He proves trustworthy, the pointed metal never nicking even her sensitive flesh when he brushes it against slick heat. Then he swears and tears the gauntlet off with his teeth, tossing it behind him with her ruined robe and pressing his bare palm to her cheek.

She feels the thrum of energy, that merciless buzz of his proximity. Hawke knows this feeling is unique to them, that none of the other mages in their group ever feel actual electricity in his presence, though they can perceive the lyrium. But she keeps her magic inside, controlled, bound like her wrists are as he tests his thumb against her lips and his fingertips over her neck and breasts. Fenris shifts her closer to the bedpost and ties the end of the sash there so her hands are trapped above her head as he kisses her face and neck and chest, his bare fingers pressing inside of her as if to test the sensation. Both of their eyes shiver closed and when she arches he pushes her down again roughly, holding her with the gauntleted hand. The cold metal pinches the soft flesh of her breast toward his greedy mouth and she whimpers as his tongue flicks across her nipple just as his thumb traces moisture up to the tingling core of nerves above her folds.

He growls and pulls back suddenly, as if reacting to her reaction, and she cranes her neck to look at him as he shifts away from her. With shaking hands he unbuckles his belt and draws his length free, the fingers of his bare hand stroking over himself as he shifts close again. The head presses against her entrance and halts, and she feels his knuckles brush against her tender skin with each stroke of his hand, all of them slow to the point of agony. He hovers over her, holding his weight and armor away from her bare skin with the gauntleted forearm beside her head. His lips brush hers when he speaks, a low, lusty growl.

"Beg me," he growls. "Beg for me." Now his thumb brushes along the swelling bud of nerves each time his hand moves over his hardness and she whimpers against her will, wrapping her legs around his waist.

"Fenris," she whispers, trying to catch his mouth with hers. He kisses her, a rough, possessive kiss like he gave her after the ball, and she moans into his mouth.

But he draws back and stares at her again. "Beg for me, mage," he hisses, sliding just the very tip of himself inside of her. His expression look strained and she holds in a moan that is part arousal, part frustration, and part stubborn. If she begs him, what happens afterward? He'll know he has power over her mind as well as her body, and he'll never let her forget it, either.

"Just bloody do it," she snaps, arching her hips toward him in an effort to slide herself over his teasing cock.

But he pulls back, maintaining the same position and smirking at her. "You have to beg me," he growls, husky and low, his thumb brushing against that nub more frequently.

Maker damn him. Damn his lips and hands and voice, the tense muscles of his body and the lyrium threaded throughout. Damn his brilliant mind and the throb of his hard length and the embittered hatred that led him to her and the blighted fear that keeps him away, that's stealing him from her all over again. Hawke whimpers again and shuts her eyes against his face, against the consuming green eyes. "Please, Fenris," she whispers. "Please. I want you."

"And?" he asks, his thumb remaining against the burning nerves, circling it as she tries to control her breathing.

"Please! I need you," she begs. "Please, just bloody do it." Then his hand shifts to hold her hips as his snap to meet them, filling her in a single thrust. She gasps and struggles against the sash holding her, wanting to grip his shoulders in her arms, and hears him chuckle as his mouth teases hers. His tongue battles hers, tasting every moan and whimper as he hauls her hips off the bed and drives into her at a ruthless pace. Helpless, all she can do is gasp and moan and continue bloody begging him, without shame or anxiety because with every thrust he convinces her it was the right decision to submit to him. His mouth leaves hers and his lips move everywhere, returning to kiss her often until at last his hips spasm against hers and she feels the lyrium light up in the bare hand clutching her breast. The flare and his seizing hips and the warm spill of his seed in her all gather to push her over the edge and she screams his name into his mouth as her body clenches around him.

He lies over her for a minute, catching his breath against her ear. His lips press against her neck and her ear and then skim over her cheek to press against hers. She sighs, her naked chest heaving against the cool metal of his armored chest-plate, feeling his bare hand close around her waist. But he pulls back, his expression sad.

"I am sorry, Hawke," he whispers. He reaches up over her head, lips pressing tiny kisses like drops of rain over her face as he unties her hands. He sits back on his heels, still holding the sash, and she just lies there staring at him as he adjusts his clothes and pulls on his gauntlet. His eyes meet hers as he takes the red sash that bound her wrists to the bedpost and winds it around his left wrist, tying it off like a lady's favor to her knight.

She turns away when he walks out and shuts her eyes when the door clicks shut behind him. It takes her another hour to get out of bed and wander downstairs in search of coffee and some breakfast. Depressed as she may be, she can't deny that their exertions worked up an appetite.

"Oh, darling, did your friend leave already?" asks her mother. "Have you brought down the breakfast dishes?"

"Breakfast dishes?" she asks flatly.

"Yes, I gave him a tray of breakfast when he came downstairs. I thought perhaps you two planned to remain upstairs a while longer," Leandra winks at her.

Hawke shakes her head and walks to the front door, opening it to see the tray with the dishes stacked on it, all cleaned of crumbs. "I think he didn't really get the message, Mother," she sighs ironically. She runs a hand through her mussed hair. "Is there any food left over?"

Her mother gives her a sympathetic, sad look. "I'll cook you some," she says, putting an arm around Hawke's shoulders and hugging her as she leads her to the kitchen.

* * *

><p>Fenris dodges back at the blast of magical energy that waves out from the blood mage, but Hawke rushes forward to meet it, both hands clutching her staff. He sees the reddish air slam into an invisible barrier around her, splashing up and away like a wave crashing into a rock. Skeletons rise from the ground and he whirls to meet them with his blade, slashing and scything through foes, his feet dancing through the steps of battle as second nature. He dodges their blades and the plumes of flame raining down from the ceiling, his markings igniting as he slams his fists through shades and demons.<p>

The blood mage, Quentin, puts up a terrible fight, but he sees Hawke at the center of everything, her staff biting through the air, her eyes hard and fearless and dangerous. The very ground shakes with the force of her spells, as enemies are encased in rock, fried by lightning, burned, frozen, or simply flung to the ground in broken heaps of bone and metal. He keeps a few steps ahead of her, slicing apart any enemies who get too near her as she lifts a hand and the blood mage's barrier breaks open. A rock slams him in the chest, bowling him over, followed by a bolt of lightning and a fireball and finally, Hawke freezes him with a snarled word. She storms through the bodies and the still-fighting monsters and Fenris is forced to turn away to deal with these remaining foes as the madman's eyes dart in his ice-encased face.

"Look at me," Hawke says, her voice low and calm to the point of being eerie. Lightning snaps in her palms and coils around her forearms, and a skeleton with a shield smacks him in the chest when he glances at her.

"Venhedis," he mutters, stumbling back a step and then leaping into the air to slam his sword down the skull and through the rest of the bones. A crossbow bolt thunks into the last skeleton's eye and Fenris whirls in time to see Hawke's mother staggering toward her. He tries not to listen to their last words, to Hawke insisting there has to be a way to save her and he looks away from Leandra whispering goodbye and touching a strangely longish hand to her daughter's face.

Where that Quentin fellow stood there is a large smear of blood and gore mixed with chunks of ice and he does not know just how she killed him, but he knows it was an absolute obliteration. He can't tell if she used blood magic or not, because the whole cavern reeks of it, and the dead mage reeks worst of all. If anything would push her over the edge, wouldn't it be the death of her beloved mother, the loss of the last of her family? Then again, he watched her freeze a slaver and then crush him with pure telekinetic force just a few months ago in Hadriana's lair, and it left a similar smear.

Aveline and Varric gather close around her, helping Hawke to her feet as he simply stands there. He's in shock as he watches them usher her out, following behind with numb steps. When they finally get free of that reeking cellar, she shoves both of them off her. Fenris hangs back as the guard and the dwarf try to touch her again and she whirls to face them, her eyes crackling with light that moves into her hair and electrifies it. He sees the lightning in her hands her palms curved as if to hold it in place as she takes a seething breath.

"Don't touch me," she hisses, and she walks off. He sees her hands close around the lightning with a hiss and pop.

Varric takes a step after her and Fenris rushes up, grabbing his broad shoulder to stop him. The dwarf looks up with tears in his eyes and says, "I need a drink, Elf." He wipes his nose on the sleeve of his leather duster jacket when Fenris releases his shoulder, getting tears and snot on the fine stitching.

He watches the dwarf with a neutral expression and nods, but he keeps looking at the snot on the jacket's cuff. Varric always complains about not wanting to get dirty. Does he care less for her than the others?

"I had better go make a report of this," Aveline says, her jaw taking on a determined set in spite of the glitter in her eyes. She walks off.

Before he can take Varric to the Hanged Man, the abomination appears from the shadows, his gaunt face and suspicious eyes tilting from the guard's retreating form to the two of them. "What's going on?" he asks, glaring at Fenris. "What have you done to Hawke?"

"A _mage_ murdered her mother," he hisses at the abomination. "A blood mage, an abomination. Just like you."

"Like Hawke, you mean," accuses the blonde mage. "I don't see why she wastes her time with you."

"Hawke is not an abomination," Fenris counters.

Before he can say any more, Varric speaks up. "Can't the two of you ever shut up? Her mother is _dead_. Leandra is dead and the way he did it-" the dwarf stops and shudders and the tears fall fresh. "I need a drink. So either come with me or don't."

Fenris glares at the mage a final time before he says, "I will accompany you for a while." He falls in step beside his shorter companion and a moment later the abomination joins them on Varric's other side so they flank him. The three of them walk out of Darktown's thick stench and up into the evening clouds of Lowtown. The mage disappears to gather up the Dalish blood mage, so the two of them are left in silence as they walk toward the Hanged Man.

"Do you love her, Elf?" asks Varric into the night. When Fenris looks at him he simply stares ahead at the stars, not with any agenda to glean information but rather in an effort to fill the recent memories the quiet provokes.

He doesn't answer, staring ahead like his dwarf friend. After a long moment of hesitation he says, "I do not know."

Varric turns sorrowful eyes toward him and says, "If you love her, you'll go to her tonight. You'll go back to her again and again, as many times as it takes before you don't leave when you go back." He turns his gaze back toward the stars, just visible through the smoke of the torches. "When you love someone and you can go back to them, you should. As often as you can. And you should always be there when they need you."

"I... see," Fenris says after a moment, when he's sure the dwarf's speech isn't going to continue. He lowers his gaze and runs a hand through his hair. "She was always feeding me. Hawke's mother, I mean. Every time I came over there she said even elves weren't supposed to be so skinny and she'd hand me a plate of food."

"Even the morning you left?" Varric chuckles, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand again.

"Especially the morning I left," he says, unable to hide the smirk. He gestures with his hands in an effort to distract the dwarf from his sad staring, and in some distant corner of his mind he is surprised and amused at this reversal of their roles. "A great big plate of bacon and eggs, with toast and coffee and pastries. And she said to me, 'It sounds like you need to eat a lot after last night.' So I ate it all and found out later that it was supposed to be breakfast for both me and Hawke."

"Bullshit!" the dwarf laughs, and Fenris is relieved he doesn't have to make up stories any longer, although the part about the breakfast was true and everyone knew it. "She didn't really say that."

"I swear on my life, Dwarf," he intones seriously, and then he thinks of that morning, of the sad smile he saw on Leandra's face every time he came by afterward. The last time he saw her, he carried Hawke and her sprained ankle all the way from the Docks to Hightown and Leandra forced him to stay for dinner. He'd been too distracted by Hawke, who kept cracking jokes about the thieves who knocked her around in an effort to ease her mother's worries. Suddenly his head aches as he realizes how much she cared for her mother, how much time and energy she put in to taking care of her and keeping her safe. And all of it destroyed by the delivery of white lilies.

"You know, I just saw her this morning," Varric says, pausing as they reach the Hanged Man. "I went over for breakfast, to go over Hawke's accounts with her and all." This, he knows, is code for 'checking up on all of their illegal businesses that serve as fronts for the treasure they earned in the Deep Roads so they don't have to pay taxes to the Viscount's office.'

Fenris sighs. "She was a good woman," he says. He glances up at the sign with the hanged dummy above the door. "I need to go, Varric," he says. He glances down at his toes against the dirty Lowtown street. "I need to..."

The dwarf nods. "I know, Broody. We'll see you guys tomorrow," he says, pushing open the door to the Hanged Man.

Fenris watches him disappear into the light and noise of the tavern and then turns to jog away through the dark streets, careful to avoid the gang hangouts as he makes his way to the Amell Estate. He waits in the courtyard for a while, listening to the sound of her uncle's voice through the walls. Then he hears some shouting and then he sees Gamlen leave. He walks around to the front of her house and knocks on the great door. The dwarven manservant opens it and looks at him for a moment before motioning him inside.

"She's upstairs in her room, messere," Bodahn says, and then he adds, "Be careful."

Beside him, his simple son says, "Enchantment."

Fenris acknowledges him with a nod before walking up toward Hawke's bedroom. He sees the purplish light flickering under her door and when he walks in she stands beside her bed, crackling electricity dancing through the room and making objects jump and jingle on her shelves. Waves of lightning buzz harmlessly through him, making his skin tingle as he steps inside and shuts the door behind him.

"There are no words for times like this," he says quietly, and she whirls to face him, crackling with light. He sees that it trails through objects, that it moves without sound, not burning or tearing, just light blazing through things and making them shiver.

Her eyes crackle with electricity and the light pulls inward until it's focused around her body in waves of electricity that snap and hiss over her skin. "Well what else is there? How about some mindless destruction?" she asks, her usual wit laced with painful bitterness. He jerks back as if she'd shot him with real lightning to hear her talk like that. Even fighting, even angry, she retains some measure of humor. "You can't talk to me, you can't touch me, what can you _do_, Fenris? Aside from chop things up and leave."

His breath hisses between his teeth and he stares at her. The lightning crackles and he knows how it feels, how the pleasurable tremors will ignite his tattoos against his will and leave him desperate for her. Terrified, he steps forward anyway, closing his arms around her. Raw energy sizzles along his nerves and his markings alight, just as expected, but beneath the sudden arousal he can feel a certain agony that doesn't hurt him physically. It feels more like a gaping empty void of ragged emotions. She slumps against his chest and he holds onto her, his arms around her waist and hands stroking her back as she sobs against his armor.

"I'm sorry," he whispers into her hair, his lips drawing sparks of electricity against her temples and eyelids and cheeks. She fizzles and flares, the lightning blazing across their skins and weaving around both of them, bathing the darkened room in the same strange purple and blue light of their night together. Fenris trembles, able to feel the force of her sorrow and the power of her magic. It takes strength beyond imagining to make such a primal force of nature harmless, power that he cannot fathom. But no Magsiter would weep for the death of a loved one because no Magister could ever love.

He holds onto her until the lightning wears her out, though it feels like forever before she sags limp in his arms so he can scoop her up and carry her into the bed. As she always does when she overuses her magic, she stares through half-conscious lids, halfway between drunken and childlike. Hawke grasps his hand, weaving her fingers through the cold metal even as he feels it drag on her skin to draw blood. She doesn't seem to register the pain though when he glances down he can see blood draining in small rivulets between her knuckles. "Don't leave me tonight," she mumbles. "Not tonight."

He draws his hand away and unwinds her sash from his gauntlet, replacing it once he's removed the metal armor. He feels her eyes on him as he removes pieces of his armor and stacks them beside her bed, and she rolls over to face him when he climbs up beside her in his tunic. When he gathers her in his arms she feels limp, her limbs flopping against him without intent. She starts to drift off and gasps, flaring back to life with the lightning, her eyes opening.

Fearless, Fenris holds onto her, clinging to her through the night as she falls into fitful sleep, kicking and thrashing and crackling with electricity in between dreams.

* * *

><p>AN: This is my favorite use of the red band yet.


	5. Inevitable

Thank you reviewers, both _Viciousness_ fans and new fans! I love you all and bequeath many cookies.

It's very fun playing with the relationship, especially the concept of fearful and fearless as it shifts between the characters. Oh, screw the interpretive preface. Hope you guys enjoy!

**Warnings:** bondage smut, violence, language, angst, mindfuckery, minor OOCness (to be explained in later chapters)

* * *

><p>As Fenris watches the Arishok bear down on Hawke his guts clench. He wants to look away but he can't, wants to interfere but it would mean death for everyone. She is their only hope for resolution. She is the only one who can defeat this monster, the only one fearless enough to face him. But when the Arishok stands, all he can see is how fragile and tiny she looks by comparison, how easily the Qunari could crush her.<p>

She moves with fierce, fearless determination, her robes twisting around her as she dodges back from his initial charge. He sees her head whip around when the Arishok's horns get caught in the wall. Her flashing eyes narrow and her smirking lips move, and then fire and lightning slam into the giant in such rapid succession that Fenris cannot tell which was cast first. There's a murmur from the crowd of nobles and he hears the words 'mage' and 'apostate' fluttering around. His heart pounds and his head aches as Hawke flings spells at the exposed back. He can hear the blood mage and the abomination murmuring behind him and he wants to kill them both for talking at such a desperate moment.

With a roar and the crumbling of plaster, the Arishok wrenches his horns free of the wall and turns to face Hawke. The crowd tenses, but Fenris glimpses a smirk dance across her lips as she opens her arms toward the giant, as if preparing to embrace him, and then she claps her hands together and rock slams into the beast from either side, pinning him in place. Thunder fills the air and lightning follows, arcing down to create a field of electricity as Hawke backs far away from her massive opponent. There's a small, relieved gasp from the nobles and the murmurs turn to 'powerful' and 'clever' and 'saving us.'

He cannot fault her strategy. Had the Arishok given her a chance to speak with any of them, he would have told her to fight just like this: dirty, unfair, and keeping a healthy distance between them. Fenris holds his breath as the Qunari struggles against his stone bonds, turning his face to avoid the worst of the spells slamming into him. Fire, lightning, ice, force, spirit energy. The rock cracks and then bursts open and Hawke backs up a few steps as the Arishok charges again to gasps from the nobility. She darts behind a pillar as he rages through the tempest, the lightning striking his thick hide and leaving burned marks and the scent of scorched flesh.

But the Arishok turns at the last second, slashing one of his greatswords out and Fenris sees a spray of blood. There are a few strangled screams among the gasps now. He starts to lunge forward and hands clap on his arms to either side; he glances to see Aveline on his right and Isabela on his left, the two women united for once in their determination not to let him interfere and jeopardize everyone's life. He snarls at them silently, wanting to scream that Hawke's life means more than anyone else's here, that they are being cowards to stand on the sidelines and let her risk herself in single combat against a hulking warrior-giant.

Then Hawke emerges from behind the pillar, her left sleeve dark with blood. She slams her staff to the ground and the air warps as a gravity bubble forms to hold the Arishok in place. Fire pours from above, jets of flame scorching the lush carpet of the Keep as she grabs a potion from her belt and gulps it, still backing away from the Qunari leader to the sound of encouraging shouts from the noble, words like 'fry him' and 'you show him, Hawke.' She flings spell after spell at him, and Fenris realizes that her mouth is no longer even moving, that magic flows through her so fast now that she hardly gestures. Lightning arcs from her hands when she lowers them to her sides and flames jet out when she lifts them. Ice ripples across the floor into jagged blades from her feet, gashing the Arishok's stomach but he keeps coming after her.

Rocks rise from the ground to pummel him and to seal him in place, frost thickens over his skin, electricity stuns him and fire scorches him and the Qunari continues to chase her around the pillars. It seems as if his wounds only serve to fuel his rage as she drinks potion after potion, trapping him in gravity wells and summoning bolts of lightning from the sky. Still, he manages to catch up, to out-chase her as she hides behind a pillar to slap a poultice over her arm. The pommel of his sword connects with her face and her head snaps back, but as it does a wave of force slams the Arishok, slowing the arc of his blade enough for her to duck it and sweep the bladed end of her staff up and into his hip. Dark blood oozes out, but he is no common soldier. His foot lashes out and slams her into the wall with a crunch of bone.

As the crowd gasps and whimpers and whines around him, Fenris thinks he is going to be sick. He has not vomited in years, not since Hadriana was learning to make potions and poisons and used him as a test subject. But now, seeing Hawke backed into a corner like this, he feels his gorge rise, sweat beading his skin and cramps seizing his stomach and chest and back.

A massive blade slashes down and crashes into her staff with a crack. The other sword hooks up, trapping the wood between heavy claymores. Hawke is completely hidden behind the hulking form of the Arishok. There is a loud crack and then pieces of her staff roll across the floor in opposite directions and he hears the crunch of both blades sinking through plaster. Shouts rise from the crowd. He sees the Arishok's back arch and a spasm tears through the massive warrior, electricity dancing across his skin in thick, jagged lines. In some dark corner of his mind, Fenris realizes how easily she might have done the same to him on their night together, or when her mother died. He does not know what frightens him more: the fact that she could hurt him so terribly with a single thought, or the fact that she is too strong to do so.

With ragged gasps, his thick skin red and black and melted in places down to the bone, the Arishok heaves both swords from the wall. He lifts them with blood oozing from every inch of his charred flesh, preparing to bear them down on her. Then he stiffens. He jerks and falls to the floor, off of Hawke's small, slick blade. She rises over him as he sinks away from the knife and a spurt of blood from his heart jets over her chest and shoulders. A single jet slices across her nose and cheek as she watches him fall, leaving a perfect slash of red. Her lips, too, are abnormally red and he realizes her mouth is covered in blood, likely from that hit to her face.

"Anders, _now_," he hears Merrill whisper, and suddenly sound is cut off in a magical barrier and he sees the Dalish mage make a thick slash down her arm and the red tinge of blood magic fills the room.

Fenris slams himself against the barrier, his tattoos flaring up in fury, but the abomination's eyes glow blue in response and a jolt of cold shoots through him where his hand touches the wall of force. Hissing, he draws back and glares, but then all of the nobles stiffen for a moment, their faces going blank. Just as fast as it began, the stench of that elf witch's foul magic fades and all of the nobles blink and gasp, staring at Hawke as she holds the bloodied knife over the body of the Arishok. The abomination's magical barrier pops and sound returns, the crowd murmuring 'how did she do that' and 'that happened so fast I can't even recall how she did it' and, with a reverence that turns it into a title, 'Champion.'

Dizzy, Fenris sprints up to Hawke's side, brushing her hair away from the bruise on her cheek with his gauntleted palm. His thumb brushes just under her split lip and he stares in her eyes for a second. Before his actions can be perceived as her weakness, he pulls around, standing at her shoulder and giving the warriors a hard gaze. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Hawke smirk at the remaining warriors, blood dripping from her lip as she cleans her blade off on her stained robes and sheathes it at the small of her back. The Qunari stare at her for a moment and one by one, they file out. The last to leave comes up and asks if he may take the Arishok's blades and Hawke gives him a long stare.

"The blade of a Qunari soldier is considered his soul. Once he has died, his body does not matter, but his blade must be returned home or his soul cannot return to the Qun," Fenris murmurs in her ear. He feels her nod against his face, but his eyes never leave the Sten standing before her. "It is your choice to make, whether you take his blades for your own trophy or not. If you wish to dishonor him and declare him unworthy before the Qunari, then take the blades."

She bends, hissing and clutching her ribs, and picks up one of his swords. He can see her arm trembling but does not take the blade, lest she seem weak in their eyes. "You may have one of his blades. Half of his soul. The other half remains with me, so that he must always remember the price for his actions. So that he may remember that it is _not his right_ to bring the Qun to the unwilling," she says. Her bloodied smirk remains in place as she adds, "And so that you may all remember it is not your choice to make. It is ours." Hawke takes a step forward and kicks the other blade to the Sten's feet.

"As you wish, _basalit-an_," the Sten grunts, "I shall deliver your words." He takes the blade and follows his fellows outside.

Aveline and Varric both hurry up to the Knight-Commander as she enters, talking fast. Cold eyes fall on Hawke and Fenris steps in front of her protectively, out of some instinct he didn't know he possessed. Isabela slinks out as the other mages hurry over to join Hawke, the abomination already muttering about the Templar presence.

"We need all the help we can get to bring order to the city," she says, hissing when the blonde mage touches her ribs. "I think he broke three or four of those," she adds. "Bloody hell, I'm glad I didn't let those blades get too close, though. I can just imagine him skewering me like a nug and lifting me up on his sword. Giving me a good shake around so all of Kirkwall could watch me flop like a dead fish on a spear."

"Ugh, Hawke, that's morbid," the abomination says, between clucking at her wounds. "He broke seven ribs all in all. Three on one side and four on the other."

"Fix them, already, mage," Fenris hisses, jerking his chin at Aveline and Meredith, now walking out the door with the Templars in formation. The nobles, too are filtering out with awed stares and scattered shouts of praise. They seem to have forgotten that she used magic and he wonders if that wasn't the spell that the Dalish witch cast, to make them forget the fight and only see the final result. No one seems to want to discuss the fact that the Arishok's corpse is covered in jagged burns. He wants to put his arm around her shoulders, but he can't with the others watching and he scowls at them.

"Did you hit your head on a low beam, Fenris?" chirps Merrill. "Maybe step on something sharp?"

He glares at her as the abomination's healing magic lights Hawke's ribcage through her robes and steps away from the chill it brings. But she reaches out and grips his hand before he can cross his arms against the sensation of the nearby magic and he cannot deny her that small touch. His fingers weave through hers and his lips press into a grim line. Healing is not pleasant, particularly when it involves bones being knitted at a supernatural speed.

"Leave me alone, witch," he growls, directing his stare at Hawke now. Her teeth are gritted against the pain of the spell, her eyes clenched shut and her head thrown back. He squeezes her hand and she grips back, her sudden strength surprising him.

"Alright," says the abomination, looking a bit pale as he edges back. "That should do it. Just be gentle for a few days. Don't go fighting any more giant Qunari."

Hawke snorts. "Thanks, Anders," she says, giving him a lopsided grin that makes Fenris' blood run cold with fury. "I kind of planned to avoid it. Hence the duel and all. Very theatrical." She lets herself sag against the wall and the moment she does he darts over and loops an arm around her face before the abomination can reach to steady her. "Ugh. I want a drink, but the Hanged Man is bloody far away."

"You should rest," Fenris says, just as the abomination say it. He shoots a glare at the other man, who gives him a sour look in response. His voice grows harsh as he says, staring the blonde mage down, "_I_ will bring you back to your house, Hawke."

The Dalish mage steps forward, heedless of the growl he gives her, and hugs Hawke's shoulders. She mutters something that makes Hawke laugh and gasp and clutch her ribs and then backs away, cheeks pink and a pleased grin on her tattooed face. "I'm sorry I made your ribs hurt, Hawke," she giggles, fluttering her fingers as she darts off. Fenris scowls at the witch's retreating back and pulls Hawke back against his side.

Then they leave the Keep, too. Fenris straps the Arishok's sword to his back and holds Hawke up with that arm around her waist as they descend the steps. The abomination insists on helping as well, on the other side of her, and seems to impede their progress more than he proves useful. When they reach the door, he turns to the blonde man and glares, impatient. "Leave us, mage," he snaps. "She does not require any more of your magic."

"She's my _friend_," the abomination says, putting his hands on his hips and glaring. "I don't abandon my friends, unlike some people."

Fenris stiffens. "That is none of your affair," he begins, and Hawke's blood covered hand presses against his chest to halt him.

"It's okay, Anders," she says. "Your clinic is probably flooded with people who were injured in the battle. I really had no idea you were going to show up at the Keep like that, to be honest. I sort of... meant for you to stay there in case people needed help from you." Fenris feels a surge of joy and smirks at the mage's hurt expression, but Hawke keeps talking, a cheeky grin spreading over her face. "If you got chopped up by a raging Qunari, who's going to save all the mad refugees of Darktown? Who shall be the noble hero to the poverty-stricken and the poor, the healer of the needy?"

"You sound like Varric," the abomination rolls his eyes, but he preens a bit under her praise. "If you need anything in the night-"

"I'll send a worried dwarf of a crazy elf to get you," she promises, grinning at him. She steps out of Fenris' hold for a second and embraces the other mage. The blood thickens and slows in his veins as he watches the way the abomination clings too tight and too long, his hands low on her waist. Then Hawke draws back, giving his hand a final squeeze, and limps back toward her Estate, toward Fenris.

The moment they step inside he grips her arm and hauls her up the stairs roughly, slamming the door to her bedroom before any of the bewildered servants can question them and tossing her on the bed. "What were you _thinking_?" he shouts at her.

She smirks at him and props herself up with both elbows on the bed behind her, half sitting with her chest arched up and her breasts displayed through blood-covered robes. "For most of the fight I was thinking 'oh shit, when will this guy die?'" she laughs. "Also a lot of thinking about how much battering from giant horns the walls and the pillars can withstand. Not that it wouldn't solve the Qunari problem if the Keep caved in on them-"

"Stop babbling your bullshit, woman," he snarls, pacing up to her and gripping her hair in his hand to pull her face back. The other hand runs over the bruise on her cheek and jaw, thumb pressing down until she hisses and winces. "You were nearly killed today. What in the hell possessed you to take on the Qunari Arishok in single combat? Why not give Isabela over to the Qunari? She'd escape them in three days at the most." He grabs her shoulders and gives her a shake, kneeling over her on the bed now. "How can you not care about this?" He's furious and aroused at her proximity and all the more furious at his arousal.

"You're the one who told me you thought I could take him," she says, her teeth gritted against his shaking. Blue eyes flash as they meet his. "I'm not afraid of him. I'm aware he's dangerous, Fenris, but I'm not bloody scared. That's why I was able to kill him."

His hands dig into her taut shoulders through the robe. "It is only because of your magic that you are not afraid, only because of your magic that you were able to defeat the Arishok with so little damage to your person. Any warrior or rogue would be half-dead from parrying his strikes alone," he growls. "You are not afraid because you are a powerful mage with wealth and political power. You are a Magister living right under the Knight-Commander's nose here in Kirkwall."

Hawke slaps him. Burning fury shines in her eyes as she stares at him. "_Never_ compare me to them," she hisses.

A second later there is the loud bang of an explosion outside and he flings himself over her body to protect her from the blast. No glass shatters and no fire licks through her windows, but another bang sounds, and another, accompanied by whistles and a noise in the streets he can now recognize as cheering. He leans back enough to stare at her face, realizing that as he lies on top of her his heart hammers against his armor hard enough to dent it. The moment stretches out into an infinite length of time and his trembling hands grip her face.

"Stop trying to get yourself killed," he murmurs, wishing his voice had come out sounding angry, not gentle or wanting.

"I had no idea you cared," she says, and it should sound like her usual saucy humor, but her words whisper across his lips and he feels, more than any moment that night with her, that he is her lover. Her bright eyes gaze into his, her face unfettered by fear or worry. He can see the emotions there, all of them plain because Hawke is not afraid to let anyone know how she feels. There is fury, not just for him but a deeper rage that he has experienced; there are sorrow and regret and loss, some caused by him; and there is that combination of calm and the stormy desire that he wants to taste once more. Just once.

Their faces tip closer at the same time and colored light flashes through the room as fireworks continue exploding outside. Her lips part for his tongue and he kisses her ruthlessly, taking all he can of her in a single kiss. Lightning dances over his shoulders as she grips his arms and he groans, hips pressing against hers involuntarily as his hand clenches over her breast. He wants her too much and when he draws back to see her face, the fearless calm of blue eyes, he realizes that she wants him just as badly.

It terrifies him.

He leaps up and rushes from the mansion before he can say or do anything he will regret and sprints through crowded streets that glow with the brilliant sparkle of fireworks. Inside his mansion he drinks himself to sleep with a feverish haste and when he wakes up to a pounding headache and waves of nausea, he goes to Aveline's office and takes as much work away from Kirkwall as they have to offer.

* * *

><p>Hawke does not see Fenris again until Aveline and Donnic's wedding, nearly six months after her duel with the Arishok. He avoids the Hanged Man and eventually she asks Varric is he's seen the elf, only to find that he has been doing mercenary work out of Kirkwall for the past few months. With her new title as Champion of Kirkwall, she finds herself being dragging in every direction, too busy to brood about his absence. There are balls and parties held in her honor, noble visitors and suitors calling. There are thousands of new contracts for her, people asking her to help them with everything from Coterie attacks on merchant shipments to one elderly woman who asks Hawke to help find her pomeranian.<p>

At the same time, she prefers to visit with the people she knew before she became Champion. She devotes many days to more enjoyable pursuits, like writing letters to Feynriel in Tevinter and swapping potion recipes with Sol, where she inevitably runs into Kieran, who drags her to the Hanged Man to get drinks with Varric. The young Templar is enthusiastic in his adoration of her, handsomer and less idealistic than Seamus though he is still younger than her, and since he's stopped frequenting the Blooming Rose he's proven the most amiable of all the men seeking her attention. Yet the man she wants is out of her reach in too many ways, seeking to be free of her attention.

She realizes that without Fenris there to help her fight, she gets hit a lot more often. She notices that since her mother died, she doesn't care. Her magic has grown stronger, deadlier, her control over the elements absolute so that they sear and scorch and tear more effectively with each spell she summons. Thugs die around her in droves. Hawke has never allowed fear or doubt to control her. Fear is dangerous for anyone, but deadly for a mage.

Until Fenris left her that night, she has never felt fear or doubt. Now it comes as an uncomfortable tugging sensation in her guts that makes her heart beat in viscous lumps. It keeps her awake at night and makes her feel weepy when she drinks. When she drifts to sleep her dreams are haunted by demons whispering to her, of desire for him and rage that he left and the sickening torpor of sorrow at his departure and pride snarling that she does not need him anyway. The lack of sleep makes her appetite go and she loses weight as she paces through the mansion, sleep deprivation and starvation leaving her more gaunt and hard-looking as the winter wanes to early spring.

As she, Merrill, and Isabela are being fitted for bridesmaid gowns (Hawke insisted on paying for matching dresses as a gift to Aveline) that fear he won't return makes her feel sick. She can't even laugh about the pirate's attempts to adjust the elf's cleavage, or at the Guard Captain's red-faced attempts to prevent her from ripping the fabric. The next day, as she dons the simple silk dress and combs out her hair, she wonders if she ought to just give up on Fenris. To find a handsome guard at Aveline's wedding and drag him to a dark corner and forget her one-time lover. So she knocks back a few glasses of wine and shoots a lopsided grin at the muscle-bound Templar, Kieran, whom she rescued from blood mages almost a year previous.

It's dangerous to mess with a Templar, but Hawke finds herself drawn in by that danger. The things that she feared most have come to pass: her sister died in a horrible bloody pulp under an ogre's fist and her brother was taken out of reach by the Blight and the Wardens. Her mother has died and Fenris has left her. Absent of a purpose, devoid of fear to anchor her to reality, she approaches Kieran with a gentle sway to her hips, pleased when he steps away from his Templar friends to meet her midway down the buffet table.

"Champion," he says, blue eyes twinkling. He takes her hand and kisses her fingers. "You look lovely tonight."

Before she can respond, a low growl sounds behind her. Kieran's eyes widen slightly and his grin wavers a bit. Hawke dares a glance over her shoulder, praying that she did not just hallucinate the sound. But she didn't. Fenris stands there, his lean muscles standing out against his forearms in hard-cut lines, dressed in a simple dark tunic with that red sash wound around his arm and her family crest on his belt. His brilliant green eyes glare daggers at the young Templar.

"Leave," says Fenris to Kieran and, with raised brows, the blonde man obeys.

"Maker, Fenris, why not be a bit ruder and see if you can't manage to ruin Aveline's wedding by starting a fight," she grumbles. Her heart pounds and she wants to embrace him and tell him she's glad he's back but this is not how she imagined it and it irritates her that he thinks he can just leave and come back and yet he expects her to wait around for him.

His hand closes around her arm, over the fabric of her dress, but his thumb brushes just past the seam, up to trail a line of warmth and that familiar electricity along her bared shoulder. "What were you doing with him?" he growls.

Her lips tighten. "I was _going_ to bloody dance with him," she answers, tossing her hair defiantly. It takes all her strength to resist his touch and the spark of fear it brings to life within her chest. If he is back, he can leave her again. If she lets herself remain so attached to him, he will only break her heart again. But Maker, she wants him, and that frightens her more than anything. For anyone to have such power over her is dangerous for a million reasons, many of them practical. She's never wanted anything or anyone as much as she wants him.

"Then I shall dance with you," he says firmly, and his eyes flash as if daring her to refuse him.

"That's not how you're supposed to ask," she mutters, struggling to maintain a scowl. His thumb brushes over her skin, back and forth in a tantalizing, hypnotic rhythm. She can still feel that faint spark of energy between them, and she hates that it confuses her so much. She doesn't know if it is her magic that brings forth this electricity in his lyrium-ridden skin. She may never know, unless he goes off and sleeps with Merrill and she doesn't want to know that badly. Her eyes fall to the sash on his wrist and she quickly looks away.

Fenris glares, brows drawn and lips setting in a grim line. He steps back and seizes her hand, brushing his lips over her knuckles. It sends shocks and shivers through her and her muscles tighten in anticipation. "Would you do me the honor of dancing with me, Lady Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall?" he asks as he straightens up, and a faint sneer twists her title into a mockery.

Hawke steels herself. She cannot be afraid of him. Her father used to tell her "Fear is the mind-killer." And so, with another toss of her head, she smirks and accepts his invitation, letting him sweep her onto the dance floor. He holds her much too close, his palm pressing against the small of her back and keeping her chest against his. There are a few stares and whispers and when she tries to glance at them his hand releases hers to touch her chin, holding her face in place so she's forced to stare in his eyes. They whirl around the dance floor, his feet sure as he moves them through a dance she's never learned, something that moves apart from the other dancers until people stop dancing to watch them.

"Don't look at them," he commands in a quiet voice. "Look at me."

The change crushes her. Once he was frightened of her and she did not fear all of his anger and sorrow and his tendency to lash out at her. Now it is he who is fearless and she who shivers in his hold as his thumb brushes sparks up across her tremulous lower lip. She cannot lose herself to this. She can't allow him to control her like this. As the music ends her breasts heave momentarily against his tunic and through the combination of fabrics she can feel how much harder and stronger his muscles have grown in their time apart.

She stares in his eyes for a long moment her fingers unconsciously woven through his hair, and suddenly withdraws her hands. "Excuse me," she says, her heart pounding as she steps back from him. "I need to... go."

As she hurries away from the Keep, pausing only to wish the newlyweds congratulations again, she sees him melt into the crowd. Hurrying down the steps and across the courtyard to her estate, Hawke tells herself that it's for the best. He clearly means to play games with her and that makes him the greatest danger in the world. She hates him as she fumbles her key in the lock, hates him for ruining her composure and betraying her. She hates that he is so calm and collected now, that he is so sure of himself and that she wants him so badly. But she hates herself most of all because she is the one who's lost to him, she is the one who's sacrificing her freedom and fearlessness more and more each day that her feelings for him burn a blighted hole through her heart.

He comes through her bedroom window when she's stepping out of her bridesmaid's gown. She whirls to face Fenris as he steals in from the night, clutching the dress over her the lace half-corset that barely covers her breasts. On catlike feet he approaches her while unwinding the sash from his wrist, his green eyes flashing and a smirk curving his lips.

"Now you're breaking and entering my house, too? Is any of Hightown safe?" she asks, but she feels a flush creep up from her chest to her cheeks and sees his eyes flick down to observe its progress as he finishes unwinding the sash. Her skin heats further as he steps almost against her. "How many young women do you watch getting undressed?"

"Only you," he rumbles, and his hand snatches the fabric away from her chest, tossing the dress aside so she stands in only her intricate smalls. Corset, stockings, garters, and that uncomfortable cloth scrap covering her most intimate parts runs between her asscheeks like a bloody fishing line.

Feeling vulnerable but refusing to acknowledge her urge to cover herself with her arms, Hawke mutters, "Don't I feel special."

His lips brush against hers as he leans to trail hot kisses over her neck, making her shiver. He reaches out to unfasten the topmost toggle on her corset, freeing her breasts to heave out of that minimal confinement, his fingers trailing over to pinch her nipple. The hand holding her sash catches one of her wrists and in seconds he's tied her up by winding the sash in figure-eights around from wrist to elbow, locking her forearms together. Their eyes meet as he holds onto her bound arms, lifting them up over her head and pushing them further still so her back must arch to keep her balance.

"Stop this, Fenris," she hisses when his mouth fastens over her breast.

He tightens his arm around her waist in response. "Make me," he says against her skin, his tongue tracing whirls that make her gasp. He pulls back and smirks at her, his voice taking on a dark, husky quality. "You can't, can you?" He laughs, a shadowy velvet sound and she tries to lock her thighs together as heat and moisture build at their juncture. In a sudden gesture he grabs her and kisses her, a hungry, furious kiss like he gave her after fighting the Arishok, the last time she saw him. This time though, his knee pushes between her legs before she can stop him, grinding so roughly against the damp fabric of her smalls that she wonders if they will tear like paper in the last coherent corner of her mind.

Just as abruptly as he kissed her he pulls away and flings her to the bed. She flies through the air and lands on her back, head thumping back against the headboard without the use of her hands to catch herself. He unbuckles his belt only, unlacing his leggings enough to free himself. Hawke scoots back, her arms still restrained, dizzy from his kiss and toss, overwhelmed by his presence and helpless against his hunger.

"What are you doing?" she asks, her voice rising to a high, breathy register. She can't take her eyes from him as he edges toward her, taking himself in hand and stroking his length with firm fingers. Her back presses to the headboard and she shimmies along it until her shoulders dip around the bedpost.

"Steering you where I want you," he answers with that dangerous smirk. Fenris lunges then, snatching her bound hands and lifting them over her head, bending her elbows so her wrists are trapped behind her neck. His belt weaves through her bindings and hooks around the bedpost and she's trapped as he leans forward to kiss her again, this time at a more languid pace, tongue tracing hers as his hands flick over her nipples and trail up her thighs until his fist closes around the fabric of her soaked smalls. She moans as his bare knuckles press against her heat and he tears the undergarment aside with a jerk.

As he folds her legs underneath her, adjusting her to the position he wants, she pulls her mouth from his and murmurs in his ear. "This won't end well."

Green eyes flash at her and his brows draw down. "If you do not want me," he says, punctuating his statement by pressing his length against her slick entrance, and speaking against her lips, "Then command me to go. And I shall."

She shivers in response. It would be so easy to reach for her magic and send him flying across the room. To say that one short syllable. But instead all she gasps is, "You sodding bastard." And he thrusts into her. His movements send her back against the bedpost and up, his rhythm furious from the start. Hawke trembles and moans as his mouth covers her lips and neck and breasts in hot, wet kisses and brief nips. Harder and harder he presses into her, pulling her closer, and as his breath comes in ragged groans he reaches a hand down, thumb circling that swollen point of nerves until she screams and shudders, her body shivering around him in violent waves.

He snarls her name into her neck and his teeth bite down until it hurts, the pain shaking through her climax and intensifying it as her muscles clench and draw him deeper as his muscles tremble and she feels the warm bloom of his seed in her belly. Her arms and shoulders ache from her back being forcibly arched through his rough thrusting; he has one arm hooked all the way around her waist, the fingers spread on the thigh of the other side in hard biting bruises. He lifts the other hand from between them and unbuckles the belt to release her arms in a swift motion and she shudders with relief as he kisses her aching shoulders and licks the torn skin of her neck like a protective beast soothing the wound with his tongue. She whimpers softly at his ministrations, shivering with delight as he rolls to her back and pulls her down on top of him, still fully dressed in his now sweat-stained tunic and leggings.

"I have been thinking of doing that for some time now," he murmurs against her hair, tucking her head under his chin. He leaves her arms tied and she does not question it as his arms wrap around her and hold her in place on his chest.

She sighs over the fabric of his tunic. "When's your next job?" she asks him, sounding more bitter than she means to.

Fenris answers by delivering a stinging swat to her exposed rear. "I don't know, Hawke," he answers. "Have you gotten a lot of work since becoming Champion?"

"Loads. There's Orlesian poodles to rescue and shady dealings gone wrong all over the place. And everyone wants me to fix it for them," she grumbles, blowing a piece of hair out of her eyes. It falls back in place and his hand shifts from the back of her head to tuck it behind her ear. "Thank you. I have more than I know what to do with. You can help with as much of it as you want."

Lyrium-lined fingers trail over her back, across the fabric of her corset and down to curve around her still-stinging cheek. "Well, I am at your disposal," he says.

Hawke raises her head to look at him as best she can without her arms. "And this?" she asks him, shifting her leg obediently to the urging of his hand. "What's this?" She wants to sound chipper and amused but it comes out serious.

He stares at her, green eyes flashing with something impossible to name. "It is what it is, woman. Leave it be."

* * *

><p>AN: "Flourescent Adolescent" by Arctic Monkeys is the tune for the smut.


	6. Indomitable

OK, extra-long chapter to make up for space between updates. I've been working on it forever, it feels like.

A/N: The occipital lobe on the rear of the head is closely linked to long-term memory.

**Warnings:** smut, bondage, violence, language, alcohol, Carver

* * *

><p>Hawke wakes up alone, her hands unbound and a lingering sense of lips pressed to her eyelids. Blinking, she looks around and sees no sign that Fenris visited aside from her haphazardly-flung gown and ajar window. She pretends it is an ordinary morning like any other, but aches whisper in her shoulders when she lifts her arms and her loins feel tender from his rough thrusts. When she arrives at the Hanged Man at noon to meet with her friends and go over the day's agenda, he waits there at the end of the table, green eyes flicking over her and his white hair shadowing his smirk.<p>

"Look who got back late last night," Varric beams, gesturing down the table. "Everyone's favorite brooding elf." Perhaps because he's a dwarf, he never seems to be hungover, though Hawke knows he was about as drunk as he gets last night at the wedding, which is to say extra-inventive with his stories.

"I know," Hawke answers without thinking. Trying not to flush, she adds, "I saw him at Aveline's wedding."

On Varric's other side, Anders huffs and crosses his arms. "All of Kirkwall saw your little 'dance,'" he says, sounding grouchier than usual. Hawke could swear there's a flash of blue glowing to his eyes as she tries to sit without looking like she's sore. But Anders' scowl reveals that she's failed in that little mission, and, when she dares a glance his way, Fenris' smirk confirms it.

"Anyway," she says, feeling her cheeks grow red and tugging at the scarf she's wearing to ensure the myriad of bites on her neck don't show. "Varric, you said something about a worthwhile job? Maker, tell me it's better than chasing poodles and delivering love letters. Last week I had a young man come ask me if I would off a man for deflowering his sister." She's babbling and feels like she's falling off a cliff as she goes on, but it's too late to redirect. "And then of course it turns out the girl and her lover are planning to run off and leave her brother the sole heir of his parents' estate and anyway, it reminded me of my parents, except he wasn't an apostate. So I beat up the brother for bothering me in the first place." Hawke takes a deep breath, uncomfortable with the weight of the males' eyes on her.

Varric snorts. "Okay then. You obviously need to get out more. Or less," he gives her an appraising look and she sees that storyteller's glint to his eyes. After a moment the stare breaks in favor of work and he slides several papers over the table to her. "As it happens, Hawke, a young woman approached me the other day asking if I would be willing to go into the Deep Roads looking for her brother, Nathaniel."

Anders raises his brows and looks at Varric. "Nathaniel Howe? I wonder if he's grown a sense of humor," he says, and Hawke is relieved at the other apostate's return to good humor. His eyes meet hers across the table. "I knew him in Amaranthine. Not a bad fellow, just very... dour."

"Well, if he's a Warden, I'm in," says Hawke decisively. "I don't love the idea of charging back into the blighted Deep Roads, but he might have word on Carver and I have to ask."

The group gets to their feet with a kind of weary resignation and they leave to gather supplies and make arrangements for the trip. Within two days the four of them gather at the city gates. At the sight of Fenris waiting there with Varric and Anders, both of whom accompanied her into the Deep Roads last time, her stomach drops. All she can think of is the way the Blighted veins crept up her brother's neck, staining his skin to unnatural purple-black. Suddenly she can imagine such darkness filling Fenris' veins, overtaking the pale color of the lyrium with oily darkness.

"Perhaps you should stay behind, Fenris," she says. The words are out of her mouth before she can hold them in and all three of the men waiting for her stare with expressions varying from shock to fury. The latter, of course, writhes over the elf's face.

"No," he growls. "You need my protection."

Hawke attempts to shake her head but he crosses the distance between them and grips her jaw in one cold, metallic hand that spreads sharp-pointed fingers across her cheek like a star. "We can manage without you," she insists, squeezing the words out through lips that he seems intent on crushing shut with the force of his grasp.

Green eyes narrow. "No, you cannot," he answers, his voice dropping to a deadly calm. It sends frigid shivers skating down her nerves and Hawke can no longer tell if it is fear or desire that fuels the sensation.

She laughs. "Are you shitting me?" she asks, her voice rising a bit. "Did you miss that epic battle where I killed the Arishok and _barely got a scratch_?"

His hand tightens on her face for a moment and he hauls it close so that his words tremble over her mouth with not only his breath but the force of his voice. "Seven broken ribs is no scratch, woman," he sneers. His eyes darken and she sees a flood of emotions she didn't witness last night, hints of terror and rage and regret. She hates him.

"I'd like to see you do better," she hisses.

When he glances down a surge of dread fills her, even as her eyes mirror his path to settle on his lips. It is a fraction of a second's glance and then his mouth presses roughly against hers before withdrawing a moment later. "Always a pleasure," he smirks, and there's a new layer of venom to his words. He shoves her back with the hand on her jaw and storms over to stand with the others, folding his arms stubbornly.

For a moment she can't breathe and her head swims. He kissed her, in front of the others. Not out of love or tenderness or any sort of good feeling, but to demonstrate his dominance. To assert his control over her, to simultaneously mark her as his and set himself apart from the others by flouting her orders and getting away with it. And he's right to disobey this order, this childish demand that he remain behind to assuage her own fears. But as air returns to her lungs and her heart sets up a furious tempo, Hawke is only conscious of how furious she is at Fenris.

Hawke glares at him for a second. "Let's get on with it, then," she says sourly, defeated.

The trip goes by in miserable silence. Varric tries to crack a few jokes but as they approach the Deep Roads entrance from long ago, even he shuts up and falls into a solid brood. They camp outside and she takes first watch, knowing she will be unable to sleep. As she stares at the moon listening to Varric's heavy dwarven snores and Anders' more human snorts and Warden thrashing, Hawke recognizes the absent noise a moment too late. When she stands, his chest presses against her back and she freezes.

Fenris grips her biceps in hard hands, the lyrium under his skin burning through the fabric of her robe as he runs his fingers down her arms. First his lips brush her neck, then his teeth graze over her skin with a hint of demand. Not willing to awaken the others, Hawke crosses her wrists in front of her in anticipation of the sash. As he did the previous night, he binds her hands, but rather than the slow, predatory seduction, he half-leads, half-drags her through the dark outside the camp. She stumbles, unable to see in the shadows and uncertain of the wisdom of using magic to light the trail. But his hands and feet are steady, fingers gripping the sash holding her captive, and she trusts him as he leads her onward.

"Where are we going?" she whispers, and then his grip changes and he swings her in an arc until her back crashes against a solid rock surface. Before she can gasp at the shock, his mouth covers hers. It is as rough as that short but public kiss, but this one is long and demanding. Tongues tangle and lips bruise and he claims her lips over and over as he frees himself from his leggings and yanks the hem of her robes up to her waist.

He pushes her smallclothes down her hips and she shivers, stepping out of the small garment and gasping as his fingers brush over her entrance and encourage the heat and moisture building there. Then his hard length presses inside of her in their place and he hauls her legs around his waist. She's still sore and swollen and he is even rougher this time, or perhaps it is the rock digging into her back. His hips drive into hers and his mouth consumes her moans. One of his hands holds hers above their heads, far away from any reassuring touch of his face or hair at her fingertips, but as his momentum increases their fingers weave together. Hawke can feel the lyrium smoldering in his veins, the pressure of him sliding in and out, the sudden shock when he yanks her hips downward in such a way that he hits a stunning compilation of nerves each time he slams back into her. The ruthless pace he's set brings her over the edge after only seconds of this new angle and their teeth crash together as both try to scream one another's names without breaking their kiss.

His mouth smothers hers for several seconds longer, his tongue lapping up her ragged breaths as the final shivers leave their skin. With only one hand he unties the bindings on her wrists and she's free to grasp his shoulders, touch his hair, free to feel him under her fingertips. But he withdraws from her mouth and body the moment the sash falls away and she plummets to the ground, cold and shocked.

Blinking, she realizes she can see his green eyes glowing through the darkness, and the campfire not a hundred feet away silhouetting every spike of his armor as he fixes himself and reties the sash on his wrist. "Never try to leave me behind again, Hawke," he growls before stalking back to his bedroll.

It takes her several minutes to collect herself, to pull on her smalls and smooth her robes and return to her space at the fireside. Varric relieves her not ten minutes after that, and she can see in the sudden gentleness of the dwarf's eyes that he heard at least the end of their exchange. He passes her a mug of warm liquid and she tastes a mixture of elfroot and brandy and milk. Her eyes are heavy by the time the mug is empty and she lets him lead her to her bedroll. Varric even tucks her in as his sleeping potion blurs even the Fade.

They find Nathaniel late the next day, arrows flying at Darkspawn with competence to rival Varric's. Anders and he talk a bit about the Wardens, though it's clear that the archer is not thrilled to see the deserter mage. He tells them there's another Warden possibly still alive further in and Hawke hurries behind the somber young man, not attempting conversation in this grim place. As they charge down a flight of stairs she sees the other Warden in his blue and silver armor slashing a massive blade and her palms fill with electricity that she flings at the creatures surrounding him.

"You bastards!" she hears and the familiar voice makes her heart sing. Carver, alive and fighting. And fighting quite well, she notes. Though three ogres lead squads of Darkspawn in an attempt to surround them, their band makes mincemeat of the lot of them.

Varric and Nathaniel rain arrows down on the beasts while she conjures lighting. A new group comes from the stairs ahead and Anders casts some kind of paralyzing spell that leaves a cluster blocking the rest from the stairs while Fenris and Carver move in tandem, slashing and slicing back-to-back as monsters gather around them. A few break away from the main group to rush toward her and Anders and she sees arrows lance through their legs to hold them in place. Several more freeze and a silver-glowing blade slashes through them. She glimpses a flash of green eyes and then Fenris whirls back into the main fray.

Nathaniel and Varric spread out to snipe unsuspecting backs and Hawke opens her flaming hands toward the sky, summoning a rain of fire from above for the group on the stairs. Carver and Fenris shout insults at the mindless brutes, and Hawke suspects that the shouting draws their attention more than the words, but is grateful nonetheless.

"Behind you!" Varric shouts and launches a flask between her and Anders that makes several of the Darkspawn reel, stunned. But there are at least a dozen, led by an ogre, and only four or five are stalled.

Hawke grabs the other mage's hand and hauls him out of range, but the huge ogre chases after them, unaffected by the contents of the flask. She whirls and sends fanning spears of ice up from the ground to skewer his legs and freeze him. There's a blur and Fenris is on the ogre's chest, knocking it over with the force of his leap and plunging his sword in several times. He leaps off with agile ease and stands in front of them, protecting the mages with his blade as Hawke sends lighting jarring the oncoming group.

Out of the corner of her eye she can see Carver taking on the other ogre with help from the archers. She turns toward that ogre, flinging a hand out, and closes her fist as telekinetic energies crush the beast to a pulp. Her brother glances at her once before tearing into the four Darkspawn still standing with renewed fury and she leaves him to it, tossing a bolt of spirit energy into the chest of a Hurlock as it tries to sneak up on Fenris.

When the last of the Darkspawn falls in bloody, sizzling chunks, Carver comes storming across the room toward her. "I didn't need your help," he sneers. "I could have handled it on my own."

"You're welcome," she quips, irritated as she folds her arms. "I haven't seen you in almost a year."

He snorts and shakes his head. "Well, now you've seen me," he grumbles. "Let's get the hell out of here." Carver flings his sword back into its sheath with a practiced motion, more graceful than she's ever observed in the past, and stalks toward the exit.

Nathaniel glances between them and fixes his gaze on Hawke. "I take it you two know each other," he comments, sliding his bow onto his back as all the others put their weapons away, too.

"She's my bloody sister," Carver calls from across the room. He's made good progress.

"Well, I can't sense any Darkspawn," Nathaniel admits, and Anders nods to confirm it. With a shrug, Hawke follows her brother to the exit, hurrying to catch up with him and leaving the others trailing behind. She glimpses Fenris starting after her and hears Varric mutter something she can't quite make out and then the elf lets her be.

"What's your problem, Carver?" Hawke asks, falling in step with him. His longer legs set a fast pace and she's almost jogging to keep up. "When I saw you last, you seemed to be doing well enough. I mean, I'm sorry that you ended up a Warden instead of me, but... there's really not much to be done about it now."

He stops so abruptly that she takes a step past him and has to turn around. "You don't get it, do you, Marian?" he says, and he's not sneering. He sounds irritated, yes, but more exhausted than anything. "I'm a Warden and you live in a Hightown mansion, knocking about with some mad elf who hates mages. What is he even _doing_ here?" Carver's voice rises at the end and he gestures down the tunnel toward the group far behind them. "I thought he left you. Where's your pride?"

Hawke grits her teeth. "It's a complicated situation, Carver," she says, feeling her face flush with fury and embarrassment. "And for the record, I hate living in that mansion without you. I hate that the walls aren't scuffed and there's not mud tracked all over the carpets and that it's so quiet without you swearing and crashing into things." Tears prick her eyes and she cuts herself off before she can start openly sobbing. For a moment her brother's face looks blurry, but after a bout of furious blinking, he solidifies back into his familiar shape. She narrows her eyes in an effort to regain control of the conversation and adds, "So thanks for reminding me that in an effort to get Mother out of Lowtown I lost you, then I lost her, and now all you give a shit about is that you missed out on having a bloody mansion."

Carver sighs and lowers his head a bit. "I'm sorry," he sighs. "I didn't mean to be a prig about it. Well, perhaps a bit." He gives her a lopsided grin.

"Of course you meant to be a prig about it," she answers, grinning and unclenching her tingling hands. Since she might as well use that pent-up energy for something, she sends it toward the ceiling and a pale purplish ball of lighting hovers above them, lighting the cavern. Once's she's sure she won't electrocute her brother she steps forward to punch his arm. "Don't make me stop missing you," she adds.

His eyes meet hers, serious and a bit guilty. "Since Mother... well, at any rate, I guess I've sort of blamed you for it. For not getting there in time, you know. And I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry for that," he says, rushing the last few words.

Unable to form a coherent response, she reaches out to grasp his hand silently. He squeezes back, almost crushing her fingers in his monstrous meathooks. After a moment, she says, "Carver, stop breaking my fingers," and they both burst into relieved laughter. It seems her friends were not too far away and judging by the looks they give her, they heard most of what was said.

"Oh, and one more thing," says Carver. He releases Hawke's hand and as she's attempting to shake some feeling back into her bruised knuckles, her brother punches Fenris. Right in the face. She knows from watching him fight other boys that Carver's got a mean right hook, and he sends the elf stumbling several feet back with bruises already forming on his jaw and blood running from his lips. As she stares on in some combination of shock, horror, and just a touch of righteous smugness, her brother points at him and says, "Don't think you can treat my sister like some whore at the Rose just because she's a mage."

Fenris snarls, enraged, and takes a step toward Carver but Hawke steps in between them. Her palm presses against his dark chestpiece and he halts, green eyes narrowed on her face. "Don't make me move you out of the way, Hawke," he growls.

The familiar click of Bianca drawing a bolt back echoes through the cavern. She feels the tension in her body and stands her ground as the Fade's power shivers near at hand. Anders, too, has his staff drawn, though Carver keeps his sword sheathed. For the moment. Hawke feels her brother standing not a full pace behind her, lending his imposing physical form to the standoff.

"He punched you because you deserve it," she says, breaking the silence. Her eyes meet his and she sees surprise break through the hostility for a split second. "And everything he said is right."

She turns around, grabbing Carver's arm and whipping him along the path beside her, stalking toward daylight and out of the encroaching dark of the Deep Roads. Hawke vows never to return. It's fortunate that Carver and Nathaniel decide to stay in town, and she sets them up with guest bedrooms at the Amell Estate. She and Varric and Merrill gather in the Hanged Man and the whole lot of them get stinking drunk. At one point her brother sees a girl he fancies and she rolls her eyes, calling to him that he'd better keep the noise down once she gets home. This means she and Nathaniel stumble to her home together, just the two of them.

"Maker, Hawke, how is it that you don't seem that drunk?" he asks her. In spite of the fact that he knows her brother, Nathaniel has taken to calling her by her surname like everyone else.

Hawke laughs as they cross the empty Lowtown Bazaar and links her arm comfortably in his. "Because a proper lady _never_ appears drunk," she says, putting on an Orlesian accent and then bursting into giggles that are entirely drunk-sounding to her ears. He laughs, too, a pleasantly rough sound, and she grins sidelong at him. "The truth is I'm a sodding mercenary. Any good mercenary can drink three times their bodyweight in dwarven ale."

Nathaniel laughs again as they walk over the bridge and into Hightown. "Have you ever tried dwarven ale?" he asks her. "I've a mad dwarf friend in the Wardens who made me try some once and a single sip had me falling ankles over arse in five minutes."

"I tried it once and vomited off this very bridge," she replies, laughing for a moment before she remembers how that night Fenris walked her home and kissed her knuckles. It seems very far away and her laughter falls silent. When she sees him looking at her with a raised eyebrow, she grins shakily. "It was a traumatic experience, as you can imagine. I think I might've killed a few plants with the force of my puke."*

He wrinkles his nose and then returns her smile in a more subdued way as they cross into the silent Marketplace. "I don't know if this is too forward of me and I apologize if it is," Nathaniel says, polite even in the throes of drunkenness, "But do you have any suitors?"

For a moment she pauses, watching him with an amused expression as they walk along, refusing to think of Fenris. "If you count all the idiot fops swanning about Hightown and hoping to wed a legend," she chuckles, "I've dozens. But I try not to keep too many of the gifts. Just the occasional box of chocolates, you know. I ought to start bringing Isabela round as an escort to the balls, so people will think I prefer women."

"Do you?" he asks, and a flush touches the highest point of his cheeks. "Prefer women, I mean?"

She laughs as they reach her door. Perhaps it's a drunken impulse or perhaps it's because she is still bitter with Fenris, but she turns and grabs the front of his shirt in both hands, rising to her toes to kiss him. It's odd. She hasn't kissed anyone but Fenris in nearly a decade and to feel the thinner human lips, chapped from the Deep Roads heat and the brush of his goatee against her chin seems strange. After a startled moment he winds his arms around her waist, hauling her close and crushing her form to his broad chest. Just as his tongue brushes her lower lip, her door opens and she jerks back a step. Nathaniel releases her immediately and has the grace to flush as Bodahn stands framed in the doorway with a confused expression.

"Um, Champion," he says, insisting upon using her title in spite of her insistence that it's unnecessary, "Messere Fenris is here to speak with you." He coughs, clearly uncomfortable with what he unintentionally witnessed, and gestures them inside.

As her manservant said, Fenris stands by the fire, green eyes narrowed on her face. He takes a step toward her and Nathaniel and says in a cold voice, "Am I interrupting?"

"No," answers Nathaniel. He makes a short bow toward the elf and then toward Hawke. "Thank you for your hospitality, Champion," he says in his polite, even tone. "I am very exhausted and grateful to sleep in a real bed aboveground. I believe shall retire for the evening." He turns and heads toward the guest bedroom that's been prepared for him, shutting the door. In the silence that falls in his wake, the click of the lock is audible.

"What the bloody hell is wrong with you?" Hawke demands after a moment. They're in the middle of the hall and both Bodahn and Orana are awake, watching them and pretending not to, but she doesn't care. Her voice rises until she's shouting. "You can't have it both ways. If you don't want to be with me, then I've every right to be with anyone I please!"

He glares at her, his bruised jaw flexing. "And is that your wish? To be with a Grey Warden who will also leave you time and again?" he snaps.

"Maybe I could handle being left behind if the man leaving had a valid reason to do so," she returns without hesitation, though she's aware she's lying. She does not want Nathaniel, not really, because she's not in love with him. But damned if she'll let her love become this crippling handicap that it's turning into, this twisted game of manipulation. Drunk as she is, Hawke isn't afraid he'll hit her, isn't afraid of his words because he says so many cruel things to her that it no longer matters. Her eyes narrow on his face. "Maybe I'd like to wake up and realize that the man I slept with hasn't run away like a thief in the night."

Fenris jerks a step back, startled at her words. His eyes widen for a moment and in them she can detect traces of shock and-is that _hurt_? A second later his face twists into a sneer. "If I am so inadequate, why do you permit me to return?" Now he draws close, looming over her. Hawke hears a murmur in the corner and in her peripheral vision she spots the disappearing corner of Orana's skirt in the doorway to the servants' rooms before the door closes behind her. A clawed gauntlet seizes her hair and jerks her face around to stare at him only scant inches away. "Why do you moan and beg for me?" His voice lowers, husky and trembling with rage, and she feels the heat of his body so near her own and the buzz of lyrium singing to her.

Hawke wants nothing more than to melt into his arms. She's drunk and his proximity has made her heart pound heated blood through her veins, shortening her breath and dilating her pupils with desire. But at the same time she is furious, particularly since their last encounter, when he dropped her on the ground and told her not to leave him behind again. As if he'd been proving a point by taking her up against the rock like that.

Fury wins, fueled by an added boost of liquid confidence and the sting of her scalp as he twists her hair in his fingers. "Why do you keep coming back if I'm so damned repulsive to you?" she answers, her voice lashing across the short space between their lips. "Why not go to the Rose for your needs, or to Isabela when she was around? They're not horrible, evil _mages_ like me."

The hand in her hair loosens a trifle, the touch no longer painful but still powerful, cradling the back of her skull and keeping her close with the promise of force if she resists. His eyes stare into hers so long that she holds her breath, frozen in place like a wounded bird before a wolf. "You don't get it, do you, Hawke?" he asks, parroting her long-ago words from the rooftop. Dark brows draw together, and it's not that deadly glare of his, nor the contemptuous sneer, but a frown that is equal parts frustration and study. He opens his mouth to say more, then closes it and shakes his head.

"It is what it is, elf," she responds, mimicking his words from the night after the wedding. "Leave it alone." Her hands rise between them to push on his shoulders just enough to make it clear she wants him to let go of her.

His hand falls from her hair to his side, limp. Even his ears seem to droop a bit. He turns without another word and walks from her house and she doesn't see him outside of the weekly Wicked Grace games at the Hanged Man for the next several months, and she spends the remainder of the spring and summer with Varric and Merrill, or helping Anders in his clinic. When she walks up to the tavern from Darktown with the other mage in tow, she's pleased to note that Fenris has a particularly sour expression and excuses himself early.

Hawke makes a habit of helping at the clinic before Wicked Grace nights, pushing food on Anders, who _is_ getting thinner, and trying to get him to talk about something other than his Manifestos and join the game. In truth, she's worried about her friend and the long hours he spends secretly running the mage underground. She's developed enough skill with healing that he'll often leave the clinic to her for hours at a time without explanation other than, "You don't need to know, Hawke. You're the Champion of Kirkwall. You can't be involved in this." It's bullshit, and they both know it. If nothing else, her time spent at the clinic is helping him keep apostate mages free and safe and helping her to keep an eye on him.

Whatever Anders is up to, it's dangerous.

* * *

><p>Fenris hates the abomination more each time he sees the blonde man giving Hawke his serious, intent stares. Did she truly choose that <em>thing<em> over him? He can't bring himself to ask.

Each time he's been with her, he's caught those memories of his past life in vivid dreams that he cannot recall in the morning. And he desperately wants to see those memories, to understand the strange new flashes of things in the Fade at night. He can't use her the way he almost did. He wants to. Maker, he wants to do it, and not only for the memories. But she made it clear she does not care for him the way that he does. As much as he wants to return to her, he knows she will push him away again and that her rejection will destroy his last chance to unlock his hidden memory.

Oh, he tried to find another woman to unlock his memories with. But when he kissed them, their lips were not hers and he fumbled; when he touched their hands or cheeks or hair, he did not feel that singing buzz of electric attraction. And he couldn't do it. Time and again he tried, with woman after woman while he was away from her. Even apostates. Every time, when the moment came to act, to take them to a private place, he's turned tail and fled. Hawke is the only one he wants. The only chance he has at achieving freedom. So he returned to Kirkwall, to her, and found himself still too terrified to brave her touch head-on. Better to mask his fear by intimidating her, binding her hands and asserting his desires with cruelty.

It thrills him that she so willingly submitted, that he had a mage so completely under his power even for a short while. It disgusts him that he enjoyed it so much, because in the end it proves he is no better than Denarius. Her response to his treatment of her was, he feels, inevitable and further proves his unworthiness. She will never forgive him, and as long as he fears the shadow of his master and his memories, he will never be completely hers.

For months he paces in his mansion cursing her and breaking things. She does not seek him out and he does not seek her out. They see one another at the Hanged Man, but her attention is devoted to the abomination and the others. He drinks his way steadily through the vast wine cellar and goes out at night to kill thugs.

One night he's in the square in front of the Viscount's Keep, now vacant of anyone but city guards and scribes, and an arrow whizzes through the air. His sharp ears detect it and he twists out of the way just in time, drawing his sword. He hears another arrow and another and realizes they are coming from behind the columns at several different angles. His brands flare to life and he dodges through the onslaught to chase down the archers. The ache of phasing through cold steel arches through his shoulders and he realizes that rogues are dropping from the rooftops. He whips his sword around to hack the dagger-wielding woman in half, knocking three others off their feet and realizes that he's badly outnumbered. Arrows fly from every direction as he sweeps his blade down to kill the remaining three knife fighters.

Thunder cracks through the square and lighting cracks down into the archers, a storm surrounding them. _Hawke_. Four more knife wielders leap toward him and the arrows stop flying. He sees fire and lightning and rock flying past and supposes that Hawke is taking care of the archers. Planting one foot, he spins in an arc and slams into several more rogues trying to sneak up behind him. All women. His tattoos lend as he dodges around their strikes, his blade keeping them far enough away that they can't really hurt him anyway.

Just as the last of them falls and he moves to assist Hawke with the archers, a wave of magic slams into him and he goes flying into the wall. His ears ringing, half-conscious, he can only watch as Hawke makes that same flick-and-twist motion with her wrist that Merrill did when they fought Hadriana, and the enemy mage's shield fails. He attempts to teleport, but she expects that; what he does not expect is for her bladed staff to whip around and crack him in the face with a jolt of electricity. With his cheek bleeding, gouged open, the mage tries to use blood magic. Fenris can smell it as he struggles to his feet, but Hawke glares and the other mage freezes, then pops, showering her with blood and frozen body parts. That crushing telekinetic spell of hers.

She turns to face him. "How's your head?" she asks him, walking toward him and grasping his arms in hers when he wobbles unsteadily. He feels dizzy when he steps away from the wall and drops his sword in favor of grasping her shoulders. Perhaps it is the concussion, but it seems there are many more bodies lying around where she stood than in his area. Grimacing, she reaches a hand behind his head to touch the hair, now sticky and matted with blood. A hiss of air comes out through her teeth and she stares into his eyes, lifting a hand up. "How many fingers am I holding up?" she asks.

"Um. Three," he says. A wave of panic threatens to break over him. "What happened?" he asks, unable to recall the details of the battle as vertigo overwhelms him.

"Come on. We're getting you to my house and I'll call Anders," she says. "I haven't dealt with too many head wounds before." Her voice is strange and tight and her blue eyes are so brilliant under the moon. He is so tired, but he does not want to let go or look away. After a moment, she sighs. "I guess I'm walking backward, then," she mutters, and she leads him across the courtyard to the open door of her house.

The room swims as they step inside and suddenly something warm and gentle and invisible lifts him from his feet. Magic, he knows, but he can't recall why it was important now. He can hear voices, dimly, but can't decipher the meaning of the words.

"-back of his head, keep him sitting up-"

"...fetch Messere Anders?"

"No!" Fenris yelps suddenly, as gentle fingers brush the hair away from the wound behind him, "Not the abomination!"

Silence falls for a moment and those fingers brush soothing and soft along his ears. He shivers. "Then we won't get him. I'll heal you," she says. That strange, tight voice that's usually so open and free. "There's not time to get Anders here anyway." He feels warmth at the back of his head, a tingle of magic that's gentle and observatory, nothing more. "His brain has been whalloped."

The voices fade to gibberish and he stares ahead as a simple-looking dwarf boy bobs into view, smiling at him and holding up shimmering runes. The lights hold his attention as the magic probes onward and then he feels a sudden shifting. The magic. He stiffens, but hands on his shoulders keep him in place. It's strange, the way that things seem to rush, the way his sense flash around between different places and times. The healing knits his brain tissue back into place and smooths out the fracture in his skull and finally the bleeding gash in his scalp. He drifts between flashes of light and dark and the room, the movement and faces and the glitter of runestones.

Then the spell ends and his mended brain snaps into place. He takes a shaky breath just as Hawke's hands grip his shoulders. Fenris can feel her trembling behind him, weak with fatigue, and he turns around swiftly to grab her and gather her off her feet, into his arms. Healing him so soon after battle has drained her of too much energy and her face is ashen and gaunt-looking from the effort.

"Thank you," he says, carrying her to the bed and unfastening her robes. She tenses for a moment and he brushes hair from her eyes, smirking faintly. "You are still covered in pieces of that mage."

"Oh," she whispers, and helps him to remove the robe as best she can while the elven maid scurries over with a clean shirt for sleeping. Hawke murmurs thanks and a dismissal and he's left alone with her and the unfamiliar task of putting clothes on her body. When he finishes he moves to leave but her tired fingers give his hand a brief tug. "Stay," she says, so quietly even his ears have to strain to hear the sound.

He hesitates for a moment, then removes his armor and shifts into the bed beside her. His heart pounds as she rolls over to stare at him across the pillows. Then, slowly, he reaches an arm out to settle across her waist. Fenris can feel her muscles relax under his palm and watches her eyes flutter shut. After a moment, she shifts to her back, sliding into the open space between them so her side presses to his chest. Worn out from the healing, he's unable to stay awake much longer than she is.

And he dreams. Vivid dreams again, more vivid than the ones he had after their trysts. Chasing a little red-haired girl around with a wooden sword. The sting of a whip. Hiding behind ragged gray skirts and being pushed forward during inspections. The crack of armored knuckles. Training with a real blade, learning to turn the new lankiness of a growth spurt into strength and agility. The searing agony of lightning the first time he encountered a Magister. The fear. The fury. The shame.

When he wakes up, he remembers all of it. Hawke lies sleeping still, though the light has stretched into the room past dawn. He stares at her, trying to reconcile the soft vulnerability of the woman beside him with the fearless confidence she has on the battlefield. Trying to figure out how she fits in with all of these memories, these images now returned to him of a family and a life before his markings. Where did they come from? Did her magic provoke them again? And if he now has what he had craved so badly from her, why does he still feel an ache in his chest and a stir in his loins as he looks at her?

Hawke makes a sleepy sound and opens her eyes. She blinks several times and a crooked grin crosses her face. "Am I hallucinating, or is there a Desire Demon in my bed now?" she asks. Her face tilts back from his across the pillow and she examines him. "Maker, you're good. It feels all sorts of real." A smirk crosses her lips and her eyes flash with power. "But of course it's _not_."

Fenris feels a faint tingle of power and a sort of expectation to her words. When nothing happens she blinks and pinches her arm and then reaches out to touch his face. He glowers at her. "If you're done prodding at me, Hawke," he grumbles. "I need to go." It's not entirely true; he has no work or plans for the day except to visit Varric and ask the dwarf for help tracking down his sister. But the new surge of memories is eating at him, and he needs time to process their sudden return. The urge to flee rises in him and he silently curses his cowardice.

She frowns at him for a second and then looks away from his face. Her hand, still on his cheek, shifts to his hair as she rolls to face him. Warm lips meet his and his hands tighten around her. Their tongues trail across one another, exploring and probing. He hardens and presses his hips against hers, but she pulls back and smirks at him. "Thought you had to go," she says.

Growling, he releases her from his hold. "I will be back," he promises, but in his frustration it sounds more like a threat. He deliberately catches her eye as he unwinds the sash from his bare wrist and refastens it around his gauntlet for all of Kirkwall to see.

"If you can find me," she retorts, moving out of the bed and shifting behind her changing screen.

His hand freezes before he can finish wrapping the sash, his blood racing at the challenge she's issued. He follows her behind the screen and she stands there, smirking as she removes the band on her breasts. Fenris doesn't stop to think, closing the gap between them with swift steps, his hands moving over the newly-exposed skin as he kisses her. Now he becomes fierce, unable to control his animal instincts as he pulls his mouth away from hers. Hungry for her flesh, unable to stop licking and biting and kissing the skin of her neck and shoulders, he shivers in his haste to taste and touch and feel all of her. She pulls his gauntlets off and he lifts one of her breasts to his mouth as he holds the wrists of her hands together between them.

It's necessary to bind her hands, to keep that electricity to a minimum. His tongue flicks over her nipple and she shudders, her fingers twisting to brush against the front of his straining leggings. He pulls the last of her smallclothes away with one hand, holding her wrists still. He pauses, crouched in front of her, able to smell the musk of her want full-force. Half-curious, his eyes meeting her desire-hooded gaze, he leans close enough that his breath ghosts across the flesh. She shivers and he can see the muscles of her stomach trembling, the hardness of her nipples, the naked want in her eyes as she licks her lips.

Fenris smirks, twisting the smalls around her ankles to hold them at a precise angle. He pulls her hands behind her and says, "Kneel," against her navel. She obeys instantly and he ties her hands to the smallclothes on her ankles so that her back is slightly arched, presenting her breasts. For a moment, unable to resist the sight, he occupies himself with shifting his mouth and one hand between them as the other slides up her leg and traces the slick folds from her entrance to that bud that makes her moan each time he touches it. His fingers move inside of her and he groans at the tight heat, sliding slowly back and forth as his thumb circles that nub that makes her shiver, his mouth and his other hand still devouring her breasts.

She moans and whimpers and it's all he can do not to take her right there. But he has plans. She challenged him. Now he pulls back, lifting his now-sticky fingers to his lips and tasting the salty-sweet mixture there, eyes on hers. Hawke flushes, lips parted and eyes glittering as she stares at him, shivering as he licks her fluids from his skin. Fenris stands in front of her before he can be further tempted and tears the laces of his leggings in his rush to remove his length. Her eyes flash and a faint smirk touches her lips before she leans forward, silently understanding his intent.

He gasps when her lips move over him, his hand pumping at the base as she sucks him into her mouth. Hot and wet and warm, her tongue sliding over him and tightening as she pulls back. Fenris laces a hand into her hair, panting as she moves back and forth along him. His hips shift forward to meet her mouth, his face heating as he stares down at her. The suction of her lips and tongue is unbearable, almost painful in its pleasure. His skin burns with an imminent climax and he pulls back abruptly, gasping for air.

In an effort to control his trembling, he lifts her up, still bound in her kneeling pose with her legs splayed, and sets her on the desk like that. Papers rustle under her knees as he kneels in front of the desk and moves his fingers back inside of her. He does not hesitate, this time leaning forward and running his tongue over the dampness. Hawke makes a soft, desperate noise and he continues, encouraged. Each movement of his tongue makes her cry out more and when he flicks the tip across that pleasure-point of hers she cries out. Thrilled at her reaction his fingers plunge eagerly into her heat and he laps at that point as her voice grows louder in pitch and volume until she's making a series of shrill, whimpering gasps. He feels the undulations of her inner walls around his fingers as she shouts his name and looks up to watch her face as her lips open and her eyes roll back. For a moment or two he continues to lick her as shudders and shocks make her shiver and she whimpers when he pulls back.

Now he lifts her to the bed, falling onto his back and drawing her on top of him. Bound as she is, it is no challenge to shift his length into her and she has just enough freedom of movement to lift and lower her hips over him. He hisses as he pulls her roughly onto himself, fingers bruising her hips. His ministrations have made her more slick than usual and he shudders. It will not take long.

Hawke's back arches when he fills her and he sits up until he can kiss her breasts and throat and lips. His hands clutch her hips, guiding the slick heat over himself again and again. He falls back to stare at her, watching her face as she gasps, the way the flush spreads over her bouncing breasts when he reaches up to pinch a nipple. Her muscles grip him harder with each thrust and he struggles to maintain control, reaching to rub his thumb against that bud again. She screams his name as she climaxes, and the rippling sends him over the edge with desperate, erratic thrusts that move deeper and deeper. He hauls her close, biting her nipple and gripping her, pounding into her as he empties himself inside.

Spent, he remembers to untie her hands, but he holds her close so she can't pull away from him. In spite of the fractal-burning orgasm, he isn't softening and he does not want to lose the heat and moisture still gripping him. "I am in no hurry," he murmurs against her lips as she collapses with her head on his shoulder, staring at him. He gives her a long, languid kiss, one hand kneading the flesh of a breast as the other kneads the flesh of her backside.

"Can whatever your doing wait?" she asks him, shivering and closing her eyes as he rolls her to her back. Her arms wind around his shoulders and he does not mind the sparks of electricity that dance through his tunic as he moves slowly in and out of her. "Maybe forever?" she moans as he dips his head and trails his tongue over her collarbones. With each slow thrust her back arches a bit more and soon he's gasping in her hair as she cries his name yet again. Sated for the moment, he rolls off of her and searches for a rag to clean himself with.

"No," he answers, re-wrapping the sash. He glances at her and sighs. Now, in the aftermath of their distraction, the memories weigh on him again. "I must go."

But he knows as he climbs through her window onto the roof that he'll be back. The next time he feels overwhelmed at memories, the next time he needs her to keep him from this past that's eating at him, he will return. Once his sister is safe in Kirkwall, he's going to kill Denarius and then Hawke will be his completely. Forever. A grim smirk crosses his face and he growls in satisfaction as he returns to his mansion.


	7. Indefinite

Sorry for the length of time between updates. Cracked dot com's fault. I'm a poop, I know. Lots of love for my super-patient reviewers. Lots and lots. And beer.

A/N: I've realized I've thrown a lot of running jokes into this one that keep coming back. Anyway, remember the way Fenris ate both of their breakfast after leaving Hawke? Also remember how she healed the head injury to the back of his skull near the occipital lobe where memory is stored? Well, now you do.

**Warnings:** smut, angst, language, angst, lots of freaking angst, medical terminology (sorry!), references to Fenris' romantic past, and a dash of Isabela/Merrill to serve as inspiration for the Broodmaster.

* * *

><p>Fenris remembers more and more with each day. It terrifies him and he sequesters himself in his mansion, only venturing out to the Hanged Man or when Hawke drags him along on missions. He finds himself unable to look at her, afraid that he will see some demonic glint in her eyes as she smiles at him. She gave him back his memories. He doesn't know whether to fall at her feet in gratitude or kill her for meddling in his mind so recklessly. At night he goes toward her mansion and stops. He can't go in through the window, not anymore, and he's too much a coward to go through the front. Night after night he stands before her door, staring at it before backing away and returning to his dilapidated mansion and drinking himself to sleep.<p>

When he dreams, he sees her red hair and frightened eyes. He remembers the way their owner's overseer would twist the tips of their pointed ears when he caught them playing instead of working. Moments when he was helpless to watch as guards or guests would seize his sister or his mother by the hair and drag them off, and how he could scream his throat raw and only be punished worse for it. Horrifying things, wretched moments that have fabricated his existence. No wonder he feels such hate and bitterness.

At the same time, there are memories of good things. A tender moment when his mother passed him an extra piece of bread, or the weight of his little sister as she fell asleep and he had to carry her to their bunk. Playing in their master's courtyard, and the fierce pride he felt when he was taught to wield a blade. The smiles of pretty girls as the clumsy fumblings of adolescence morphed into the seductive confidence of an experienced lover, and he can remember many girls and still none meant anything to him until Hawke. It confuses him, having his memories back and wrestling through them while realizing that as he remembers past flings, he can't remember feeling such need as he does for her. They all seem hollow and ghostly by comparison.

The dreams awaken him and he can still remember everything so vividly, all of the pieces fitting together with every passing day. He can't sleep through the night and the insomnia wears his nerves down. On those nights he is most desperate for solace he seeks her out, climbing through the window of her mansion and lying beside her on the bed. He does not bind her hands, does not give in to his desire for her. They lie in silence until sleep claims him and when he awakens, all too often he discovers an imprint of his tearstained face across the fabric of her nightdress. He leaves, ashamed, before she can wake up.

Fenris feels like he is possessed with the dual needs to rescue his sister and to be with Hawke, but as the one mission draws on too long, he backs away from the other one out of cowardice.

Some days the memories engulf him so thoroughly that he cannot tell the difference between Kirkwall and Tevinter. The architecture and the statues that stare at him, the miserable elves of the Alienage and the cold eyes of the nobles swirl around him until he is uncertain of reality. His grip on sanity slides and he retreats further from the rest of the world as months stretch into seasons and the seasons pass from winter into fall into spring once more.

He pours himself into finding Varania, trying to track her down with every resource he can purchase or intimidate or threaten into helping him. Varric helps him, and even Isabela when the pirate returns, eager as she is to get back in everyone's good graces. Fenris can't help noticing that of their group, while Hawke and even Aveline have forgiven her theft that nearly destroyed Kirkwall, Merrill seems the slowest to warm back up to her. The naive Dalish blood-mage gives the pirate looks that, when Fenris notices them, remind him all too well of the way he's seen Hawke look at him. Furious, longing, hurt. _Abandoned_.

And then it happens. He receives a letter from Varania, then another. After scraping together coin enough for passage from Tevinter to Kirkwall, all he has to do is wait. When the letter comes, he doesn't know how to react. He can't go to Hawke, not after disappointing her so thoroughly and so frequently. So he seeks out the pirate as a kindred spirit, knowing that she has done the same thing he did in one way or another.

Fenris treks to Lowtown and spots her at her usual place at the bar of the Hanged Man. He strides through the room toward her, scattering nervous patrons in his wake who mutter things like 'Champion's elf' or 'Hawke's man.' Their folksy titles darken his scowl. "Why did you leave her?" he asks Isabela without preamble, motioning to Corff that he wants a drink.

Her amber eyes narrow on his face for a second before full lips twist into a grin. "Hawke? I left because she was furious-" she begins. But he's no fool and won't be waylaid by her attempts to redirect the conversation.

"Not Hawke," he interrupts, "The blood-mage. Merrill," he says, lips twisting around the name. It's no secret he distrusts and despises the foolishly naive witch. "Why did you leave her? Why not bring her with you when you left?"

Isabela snorts and stares into her cup. "Clever boy," she mutters, and then her gaze shifts back to his face. "Why did you leave Hawke? You didn't start an invasion with your idiocy." A faintly bitter smirk crosses her lips. "You just up and left because you're too terrified to have something good. Because you can't handle having someone like Hawke there to love you."

A strong urge to punch her builds and Fenris recognizes that even if he does strike the pirate, her words will continue to ring true. Just in time, Corff sets down a mug in front of him and he drains it in one long pull. He sets the mug down and motions for a new one, trying not to focus on the taste. "Do you think Merrill will forgive you?" he asks her once his drink is gone, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He can't bring himself to ask the question he really wants to ask. Then again, the pirate wench is too cunning not to see through is pathetic ruse.

"Of course she will," Isabela chuckles. "You and I both love very good-hearted, forgiving women. It's a terrible curse, isn't it?" Her voice lowers to a whisper as a new drink arrives. "You want to know the truth of why she hasn't forgiven me yet? I haven't asked her." She pauses and watches him as her words sink in. "I could just go and tell her I'm sorry, beg her forgiveness, and promise never to leave her. And I'd bloody keep that promise, because I know she'd forgive me."

"So why don't you?" he asks, knowing the answer. It fills his stomach with dread.

The pirate shakes her head and smirks at him. "Because after what I've done, I don't deserve to be loved by someone that wonderful, even if I love her," she says clearly. Her eyes meet his and they reflect the same depth of sorrow and cowardice and self-hatred that he feels. He can't stay there anymore and leaves coin for his first drink and for the second one that has yet to arrive. Turning stiffly, he walks out of the bar and back to Hightown.

It seems his feet will not obey him, and he detests them because he is a free man, damn it. But they carry him to her door and as he stands there struggling with whether or not to knock, her manservant opens the door and stares at him. Before Fenris can drudge up an excuse to leave, Hawke steps up behind the dwarf and raises her brows at him.

"Well, come in," she says, as if she's been expecting him. He glares at her and she shrugs, unintimidated as always.

"I did not-" he begins, but it's too late. Her electric fingers have found his hand and she's pulling him after her, drawing him inside with a gentle, irresistible tug on his fingers. Fenris realizes that he's craved this tiny show of tenderness, this proof that he is real and she is real. With all of his memories crashing in and overwhelming him, he has withdrawn and lost himself. And she's been what he needed all along. "Hawke, I do not mean to intrude," he says, still certain this moment will be snatched away.

She shakes her head. "Come on," she says, rolling her eyes a bit. A faint grin plays at the corner of her lips, as though he has been over every night. "You're here now. Might as well sit down." Her hand is so light on his that the pressure of her fingers is barely perceptible, but he follows her nonetheless. She draws him into the library, as if this is some sort of neutral territory.

The very fact she does it makes his eyes dart to the desk and the plush rug on the fireplace and small nook in the wall that lacks any shelves, envisioning having her in each of these places throughout the room. His stare wheels around to their joined hands, then up to her face and the knowing smirk playing across it, as if she knows the direction his thoughts just took. He hates himself for being such an animal, and hates her for laughing at him, for provoking his desires and for submitting to all the worst of his urges. Fenris tightens his fingers around her hand.

"Are you all right?" she asks, looking at him and hesitating in front of the armchairs by the fire. "You've been rather more brooding than usual lately."

"I do not brood," he growls automatically, but on catching her eyes, he sighs and deflates, sinking into the chair and releasing her hand. How can he explain the truth to her, that his memories have returned and he thinks it was because of her healing spell? Is it possible that she's reversed the magic Denarius cast on him? As much as he desperately wants to know the answers, it terrifies him to imagine that she is more powerful than the evil Magister, because he knows all too well how powerful his former Master was, and just what that power enabled him to do.

Yet staring at Hawke as she stands before him, watching him with her fearless blue eyes and pieces of dark hair escaping the myriad of pins as always, he sees that her power is more than simply the magic flowing through her. Her true power is strength; the force of a will so powerful that no demon can possess her, no monster can cull her, no man can intimidate her.

"What's the matter?" she asks, her tone gentling. She crouches and reaches toward his hands, then veers to grasp the arms of his chair rather than touch him. His heart contracts bitterly and he wishes he had strength enough to take her hands in his and kiss her knuckles, to lift her palm to his face and let her trail electric fingers over his cheeks and lips and eyelids. He hates himself for failing her, for leaving her, and yet he can't bring himself to ask forgiveness. He does not have the same strength that she does.

He is a coward.

Fenris shuts his eyes against the sight of her face. "My memories have returned," he whispers, ashamed at the admission, as if she can see all of the women that came before her.

Hawke draws in a sharp breath. "The healing spell," she murmurs, sitting back on the rug by the fireplace with a thump that makes his eyes snap open. Her hands leave the chair and the close proximity to his, one of them coming up to her mouth. Horror flashes over her face. "Oh, Fenris, I'm so sorry. I had no idea," she says, blue eyes meeting his with a mixture of sorrow and something else, something he's never seen in her face before. He recognizes it only because he's seen it so often in so many other faces: fear.

"You are... frightened," he says, perplexed and staring at her. He edges off his seat to kneel in front of her by the fire. "Why?"

She squeezes her eyes shut and draws a ragged breath. "I meddled where I shouldn't have. I meant to heal you and instead I released Maker-knows-what into your head and now," she bites her lip so hard it turns white against her teeth and her shoulders hunch by her ears. "Now I've done something unforgivable. And I'm afraid you're going to leave forever this time." At last her blue eyes meet his, miserable and frightened and he wants to gather her in his arms, to reassure her.

He can't.

Instead he stares at her and says, "My sister Varania just arrived in Kirkwall today." Her head snaps up, her attention on him. "She is at the Hanged Man. I... I would like you to come with me, to meet her there. In case..." Fenris trails off, unable to give voice to his dread.

"Of course I'll be there for your family reunion and the inevitable bloodbath," she grins, and he realizes that she's joking, but her words make his heart lurch uncomfortably. A bloodbath is what he expects, what he fears. "You probably nailed her braid to the bed just like Carver did to Bethany and me when we were little. Better hope she's not a mage, because I froze his smalls every day for a week when he did that."

Her words provoke another memory, a sight of his sister with her flaming red hair holding her hands out, palms up. Fires flare at her fingertips. A mage. His own sister is a mage. The woman he loves is a mage. How can he live with such hypocrisy? Fenris stares at Hawke, his shoulders slumping. "She... she will be there all week," he says, feeling weak and grateful that he is already seated. He can't meet her eyes though he studies her face, the way the firelight makes her skin and eyes glow as ethereal as her power. Is there any way to reconcile his feelings for her with his feelings toward mages?

"We'll go tomorrow," she promises, reaching out to touch his hand. "First thing in the morning."

Fenris curls his hand around hers and draws her near. Her eyes flash brighter blue, startled, but when he draws his arms around her and rests his cheek on her hair she relaxes and returns his embrace. After a second she sits up and removes his shoulder pauldrons and he takes off his gauntlets. They sit there by the fireplace, and he rocks her as her head droops down to his shoulder and he can bury his nose and mouth against her hair and breathe her in. He wakes up hours later, stiff and sore, slumped on the rug in front of dying embers clutching her tightly against his chest. There is an imprint of his chestplate on her cheek and one of her hairpins protrudes to jab him in the nose.

"Hawke," he murmurs, touching her face. "Marian," he whispers. She makes a soft, sleepy noise and shifts her face more firmly against his armored chest. With a sigh, he releases her to unclasp his armor and then he rolls her to her other side, pulling her back against his chest with one hand as the other meticulously pulls each pin from her dark hair.

The morning that he wakes up to meet his sister, his eyes and nose and mouth are full of dark hair and his arms are full of a warm, soft body. Wiping hair from his face, he sits up, rubbing his temples and wondering why the dreams didn't plague him. Why the memories are present without being overwhelming. He glances at Hawke as she groans and sits up beside him, but he finds he can't bear to meet her eyes. She leaves the room while he is still assembling his armor and he hears her murmuring to her servants and then the slam of a door as one goes out to find a messenger.

He walks out of the library grouchy and disoriented, unused to sleeping in her house. The fact that his memories are no longer threatening to consume reality does not cheer him; it makes him wary, certain that Denarius must be present in the city for them to dull like that. It never occurs to him that it is not so much a dulling as a healing, but he would not trust that either.

She stands outside of the door with a tray full of breakfast in her hands. Plates of eggs, sausage, fruit and scones. Steaming coffee. "Eat," she says, extending the tray toward him. A faint smirk crosses her face. "This time the whole tray actually _is_ meant for you."

His throat is too dry to chuckle and the food tastes like ash. Fenris wolfs it down anyway, aware he needs his strength for battle. It churns in his stomach and he needs a glass of water before he can leave the house. Aveline waits outside with an ill-concealed smile on her face and they make the journey to Lowtown in silence. Only the solid weight of the sword on his back and the nearby electric hum of Hawke keep him sane as he moves to face his former master.

* * *

><p>Hawke takes one look at Varania and can feel something <em>wrong<em>. She can sense the girl's magic, but there's something binding it, holding it in check. Something external. Heart pounding so loud that she can't hear what Fenris is saying, she grips his hand, fingers pricking on his gauntlet. A surge of hissing fills her ears when a drop of blood wells up on her fingertip, the demonic influence of so many nearby demons just begging to be used.

"It's a trap," she chokes, stumbling away from the elf girl. Both she and Fenris look toward the stairs at the same time as the gray-haired Magister descends with a smug smirk that doesn't touch his cold eyes.

"Thank you for recovering my lost property," smiles Denarius. His voice is as insidious and slithering as the demons hovering in a cloud around him.

She grits her teeth. "He's not a slave," she snarls. She smirks at the demons to either side of the Magister and says, "But you are. You sold your very soul for power, and in the end you'll die soulless and powerless." As much as she wants to add it, she knows better than to point out to a cocky blood mage that for all his deals and demonic assistance, he still lacks the combination of raw power and intense strength of mind that make a true Adept.

Fenris sneers at the Magister and says, "You are not as powerful as the Champion of Kirkwall for all your pretensions at greatness, Denarius." The air thickens with demons and blood magic and she could kick him for being so obvious. The blighted idiot blood mage didn't even think to examine her magical presence in the Fade, but now that Fenris pointed it out, he certainly has.

Hawke's head pounds as she glares at the old man. She can't keep the demons at bay and hold in her magic any longer. Lighting lances from her fingers to the center of the Magister's chest and he staggers for a second before raising a shield. Shades fill the tavern. The lightning begs to be used and she feels a grin spread over her face as currents fill her body and a tempest sweeps through the room, shearing the monsters into dusty pieces of Fade. Of course there are guards, too, and she sees Fenris and Aveline standing back-to-back with their blades tearing apart the swarming foes. Isabela darts in and out of view, always with the silver and red flash of daggers and blood, and Bianca fires from the stairs in a steady hail of miraculous accuracy, pinning men's legs to the ground or filling ghouls with so many shafts they look like pincushions.

"Bianca, you minx," she laughs through the din, waving a hand toward enemies and sending a fan of icicles up around her to freeze and impale. A crossbow bolt lances through three men. "That was beautiful!" Hawke lifts her hands and flames rain down on the enemies dogging Aveline and Fenris, knocking them down and setting them ablaze so that they make easy pickings.

"I was wondering when this was going to come back to bite us in the ass," shouts Varric from across the room. She signals him to move away from the stairs before he gets pinned down there and unleashes a wave of telekinetic force to fling enemies away from her. A huge bloodied blade scythes through them from behind and the corpses shamble up to their feet and lurch back to fighting. Furious green eyes meet her for a second and Hawke flings a fireball into a knot of reanimated monsters. Aveline, Isabela, and Fenris all set to the unpleasant task of chopping them up until they can't fight anymore.

Varric swings around just as Denarius teleports to the corner by the door. Hawke grins as his shield pops back around him and her fingers grip the air and the Fade at the same time to rip the magic apart at the seams. Bianca clicks and the bolt slams through the Magister's shoulder, pinning him to the wall. Fenris is there a second later in a flash of lyrium blue, his hand shooting into the blood mage's neck. A sick pop echoes through the room and the corpses fall limp.

Fenris snarls and stalks toward his sister, cowering in the corner. "You sold me out? Your own flesh and blood?"

"He was going to make me his apprentice," she cries, covering her face with her hands. "I could have become a Magister! You don't understand the things I've had to do since Mother died."

Hawke can feel the air around him grow cold as he stares at the elf girl. "You sold me out to become a _Magister_?" he asks, his voice dropping to a deadly octave. She shivers and looks away, knowing what comes next. A wet squelch and then the dual thumps of heart and body hitting the floor. For a second she hears nothing but his ragged breath. When she steps closer he whispers, "I am alone."

She reaches out and grips his bloodstained shoulder. "No you're not," she says firmly.

He whirls to face her and for a moment her heart races, expecting him to attack her. But his furious, flashing eyes are filled with agony and then he's pressing his slick palm to her cheek, the blood still warm. Fenris smiles, just a faint upward twitch of his lips, his eyes still full of pain. When he strokes her cheek she doesn't care about the red fingerprints streaked over her face, only the smile.

"Let's leave this place," he says, shaking his head. "I need some air." His hand drops away from her face but when his fingers catch in hers as he leads her to the door, not looking back at the slumped figure of his sister. Hawke can't resist a final glance, and a wave of nausea fills her stomach at the expression of terror frozen on the dead face.

They walk up to Hightown covered in blood and holding hands, in a silent daze of racing thoughts. At her door he stops, turning and lifting her chin with a delicate touch of his gauntlets until their lips meet. He kisses her, slow and tender, his tongue tracing her mouth and his lips teasing at hers. She holds onto him, afraid to let go because her knees feel too weak, and he keeps his hands on her waist, steadying her when they pull apart. He rests his forehead against hers and slowly lets go of her, stepping back until he's out of reach.

Hawke watches him hurry away and then slouches inside when he's out of sight. She waits, impatient, until the next morning. But he does not come to see her and finally she can't take it any more. She has to know if he's leaving. After an hour of picking at her breakfast and pacing around the house, she finally hurries out the door and over to his mansion.

Varric and Isabela are sitting there in front of his desk, arguing with him about something. As she approaches, she can hear them more clearly, talking about how he shouldn't keep living in his rundown mansion. Her steps slow as she ascends the stairs, but she doesn't dare to enter the room quite yet, hovering in the doorway.

"After all of my brilliant advice the other night, you didn't even ask?" Isabela says. Hawke tenses for a second; this sounds distinctly dirty. The pirate's voice lowers to a purr. "I talked to Merrill, you know."

"_We_ talked to her, Rivaini," Varric corrects her. His sharp eyes catch Hawke's for a moment before a broad grin splits his face. "Want me to stick around and offer pointers, Elf?" He chuckles as both Fenris and Isabela scowl at him, one fearsome and one pouting. Thoroughly confused, she hesitates in the door, one hand on the frame. The dwarf winks at her and pats the pirate's arm. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

Fenris turns to stare at her and Hawke has no choice but to enter the room. Lacking anything more intelligent or witty to say, she mumbles, "So you're a free man. What do you plan to do now?" In an attempt to retain some levity, she grins at him, but she can feel it falter.

"Am I truly free?" he asks, green eyes intent on her face. One clawed gauntlet gestures to a chair and she sits, but the moment she does he springs to his feet and paces away. "Hate dogs me. My memories threaten to overwhelm me at any moment. I have killed my master, but I have no idea how to live without the shadow of fear at my back." Suddenly his head whips around and his eyes pin her in place. "What do you do when you stop running?"

She licks her lips to buy time and sees his eyes dart down. In that flicker she recalls every kiss they've shared, from that tender one after Denarius was killed to the rough ones as he bound her hands so he could have her to that moment of fierce desperation after she battled the Arishok. With an effort she shoots him her most winning grin. "You find a pretty girl and have a litter," she says, half-joking, her gaze sliding to the floor when he tries to catch it. For a moment she studies the broken glass littering the tiles, and before the silence can become too oppressive, she glances up and adds, "You might want to fix the house before."

He takes a few steps toward her, staring with green eyes full of sorrow and regret and a hint of desperation that's mirrored in the pleading note of his voice. "Hawke," he says. "Marian." The syllables rumble the way they do in dreams, and her blood heats up at the sound. "I never should have left that night. Or ever. I never should have left your side for even a moment."

With an effort she manages to shrug nonchalantly. "Who knows why any man leaves?" she mutters, rolling her eyes. "You didn't want to talk about it."

"If I could do things differently," he murmurs, and her head snaps up to look at him. Fenris takes a step closer, white hair hanging in his face, and reaches out toward her head, hesitating before he can stroke her hair. "I would tell you how I felt." His gloves are gone and she can feel the buzz of his lyrium tattoos like electricity reaching for her, trying to intersect and weave with her magic. It's hypnotic, just like his green eyes, and the thrum of his heart and the warmth of his skin so near her face.

"And how do you feel?" she whispers, daring to meet his gaze full-on. Her heart hammers, but the fear is gone now, replaced by hope and heat and this soaring feeling as if she's on the edge of a precipice and about to fly.

Fenris leans down, his hands pressing to either side of her hips, so close his breath heats her cheeks and throat and ears and she can taste the wine on his breath as his lips hover over hers without quite touching. "I need you," he says and her heart starts hammering. "If there is any future to be had, I want it to be at your side. I know that I am unworthy, but I pray you can forgive me."

Hawke makes a noise that is all too like one of her noble neighbors' poofy Pomeranians and stands up so fast she nearly head-butts him. But he grips her waist as she wraps her arms around his neck and lets her press fervent kisses over his cheeks and nose and forehead and eyelids before he hauls her mouth to his. Chapped lips brush over hers and his wine-flavored tongue tangles with hers. She clings to him as he holds her close, both of them kissing each other with a passion and hunger born of too long wondering. He lifts her legs up to his waist and spins her around to the bed, narrow and crooked and creaking.

His hands drag over her robes, fingers fumbling the clasps open. Tentative, expecting to be tied, she wraps her arms around his shoulders and dares to stroke his hair. Fenris growls softly and moves his mouth to her neck, nipping the skin and soothing it with lips and tongue as his fingers pull the band off her breasts and his palm settles over the swell off one. She gasps and sparks shiver from her fingertips to the nape of his neck.

She tenses, realizing her error, but he doesn't shove her away or bind her hands. He groans. That faint honeyed noise drives her into a frenzy of reciprocation, and Hawke scrambles to unfasten his armor. Fenris draws back just enough for her to see his smirk before kissing her again. His tongue presses into her mouth and she fights him for dominance of the kiss as she sheds clattering pieces of metal. His hips grind against hers, still clothed, and she moans into his mouth, fingers tangling in the cloth of his tunic as she attempts to unclasp the toggles. He strips her down just as hastily, breaking away from her mouth to flick his tongue against her nipple and make her fingers spark against his bare back. His teeth catch the tip of her breast and she gasps again, lifting her hands away from his skin when the lightning gathers again.

Green eyes suddenly lift and flash at her. "Touch me," he whispers. The ragged ache in his voice and the raw need, the hunger in his stare and the quiet command stir the heat in her loins.

And she obeys him. His skin feels feverishly warm under her palms, and she traces her hands over every part of him. Fingers follow lyrium lines and electricity edges each touch. Fenris moans against her neck in a rush of hot breath as she traces the point of his ear with her tongue. His hand tightens over her breast and the other one drags her smallclothes down to her knees. Hawke runs her hands over his arms, her fingers spread wide to absorb as much of his skin as possible. Hard muscles strain against her palms and in the back of her mind she names off each one as the tighten and tremble under her fingertips-_biceps, triceps, brachialis, coracobrachialis._

As much as she wants to be slow, neither one can wait. Fenris obliges her as she draws his leggings down, even rolling to his back as she trails hands and lips over his knees and up his thighs. She glances at his erection and smirks at him before taking the hard length in hand.

Apparently what little patience he possesses vanishes at that moment, because he lunges forward and seizes her hips. Hawke only has time to utter a surprised yelp before he presses into her, meeting her eyes with an intent stare. He sits forward so their chests press together and his head slumps forward to rest on her shoulder as he fills her completely. She clings to him with arms and legs, turning her head to kiss his ear and his neck and his shoulder. Fenris starts to rock within her, creating a rhythm that the sparks echo over both of their skins. His tattoos light up, a slow, steady glow that brightens as their pace increases. Her mouth finds his as he reaches between them and brushes his thumb so lightly against the nerves above their joined bodies. Hawke cries out and sees sparks lancing through her vision.

They scream at the same moment, her body tightening and rippling around his frantic deep thrusts. He falls back against the bed and it creaks loudly in protest as their weight flops into it. Before she can catch her breath, he grips her face in his hands and rains kisses down, over her lips and cheeks and eyelids and the tip of her nose and her forehead, just like she did to him earlier. His lips tremble against hers when he kisses her mouth, tender and slow until she aches.

"Are you alright?" she asks, lifting her face to stare at him.

Fenris gives her a faint smile, caressing her cheek and brushing strands of hair out of her eyes. "Never better," he answers. His other arm steals around her back to press her naked body closer against his chest. She can't fight the flush that rises to her face and neck or the giddy smile his words bring to her face. She can't even be irritated when he chuckles and rolls them to their sides, tucking her head under his chin and holding her close as they doze off.

Hawke knows as sleep edges over her senses and the steady breath and quiet snores lull her that it will never be perfect with him. She is a mage and will forever have to fight to keep control of herself, and he does not trust mages. The terror of losing him a second time, more permanently, will always dog her, shadowing her formerly carefree existence. His fury and his past will forever cling to him and fill him with anger and bitterness. And somehow, though it defies reason and rationality, she cannot imagine anything better.

* * *

><p>And we're down to the end of it, one chapter away from endgame. Guess it's not a good thing I started YET ANOTHER epic FenrisF!Hawke story. That's actually much darker and sadder. It'll be up soon enough.


	8. Inseperable

This was so much more difficult than _Viciousness_ to finish. Keeping Hawke happy and humorous in the face of all the crap she goes through was interesting. As for the reasoning behind why she doesn't fight the bondage, well... we have an explanation.

Special thanks to all of my wonderful reviewers, and especially to my reviewer-stalkers (T.I.M! alisgal! mille libre!)

**warnings:** Fluff. Smut smut smut. Violence, character death, Meredith-bashing

* * *

><p>Hawke wakes up to warmth, her body encased in the tight embrace of Fenris' arms, her back against his solid chest. She wiggles a bit in an effort to test him and he groans sleepily, burying his face in her hair and hugging her closer.<p>

Maker, this will be difficult.

After a great deal of squirming and maneuvering, she's able to free herself of his grasp. Tiptoeing around the mess of his mansion floor and wondering if she can clean up around here now that he's come back, Hawke hunts down her robe and boots. She dresses as silently as she can before slipping into the cold hallway, hugging herself as she glances around. At last she reaches her destination, hauling open the heavy door and cursing the Magisters' architectural choices under her breath.

Who makes a privy door out of stone, anyway? Shivering, she hurries through her morning ablutions so that she can get back into the lovely warmth of the bed. She steps out into the hallway, tugging the door behind her with a scrape of stone, and Fenris charges around the corner with a frantic expression. Green eyes flash at her and he reaches out to touch her shoulder, strong fingers gripping as if to ensure she's there.

"Hawke," he breathes her name as a sigh of relief. Puzzled, she stares at him as he moves his hand to rub his eyes. "I apologize. I heard the noise of the door and thought someone was attempting to break in." The points of his ears turn red as he speaks.

She nods, not wanting to push him further. They both know full well what he thought when he awoke to find her missing from the bed. Instead she reaches out to take his hand and give it a squeeze as she grins at him. "Thank the Maker for your hearing," she answers, "Or Isabela and Varric just might manage to break in and spy on us."

He chuckles, a dry barking sound that clenches through her heart and she stares at his face, her smile fading to something gentler. Fenris looks at her for a long second and then darts forward, catching her cheek up in his hand as he kisses her. Something in that kiss is terrifying and wonderful at once: heart-pounding desperation warring with relief and the same warmth she woke to. She sighs against his lips and wraps her arms around him as he angles to deepen the kiss, his tongue probing hers.

When she pulls back, he gives her that faint smile of his and her chest feels hot and trembling. "Come on," she says, lacing her fingers through his. "Let me cook a bit of breakfast for you."

Fenris smirks and nods. "I do not believe I have ever seen you cook," he says. Hawke punches his shoulder and he chuckles, wrapping an arm around her waist as he leads her to the larder.

Half an hour later she mops ashes off her face with the sleeve of her robe and sighs. Fenris gives her an amused glance, well out of the blast radius of their breakfast as he lounges shirtless in his favorite chair with a bottle of wine.

"Orana makes it look so _easy_," she complains, giving the charred scraps in the fireplace a final mournful stare. Pouting and well aware of it, Hawke stands up with a cloud of accompanying ash and snags the bottle. After a long gulp she glances from his lap to her dirty robes and back. "You've never seen me cook because it results in unmitigated disaster," she sighs, stripping off her robe.

"I cannot say I object to the results of your cooking," Fenris drawls, eyes raking over her appreciatively. He reaches a languid hand toward her and she climbs into his lap, resting her head against his chest as he runs his fingers over her back. "Perhaps in the future we should endeavor to have breakfast at your house?"

Hawke lifts her head from his shoulder to give him a fond grin. He responds with his usual smirk, hooking a hand around her head to draw her into a kiss. His hands trail down her back until strong fingers grip her hips and he presses her down against him. She can feel his erection growing through his pants and sighs into the kiss, fingers tangling in his hair and thumbs brushing along his pointed ears. Fenris groans roughly and grinds himself against her, his hands now moving to cup her breasts. Deft fingers dance across her nipples and his mouth moves to her neck, her collarbone, the tip of a breast.

She gasps, arching her back and he wraps one arm around her waist to hold her in place. With his mouth still clinging to her breast they struggle his leggings open until his length springs free. Hawke shifts forward, meaning to impale herself on him, but he grips her waist with his other hand and yanks her upward. Her feet touch the seat of the chair on either side of his thighs.

"What are you doing?" she breathes, confused and hazy with lust.

Fenris looks up at her, green eyes darkening as he smirks, and then he leans close, his tongue trailing over her folds. Hawke shivers and moans and his hands tighten, holding her aloft as he tastes her. Long rough strokes of his tongue through her dampness and quick flicks along the bud at the apex of her folds. She grips the back of the chair, moaning as he focuses on that pleasurable nub. Before she can climax he yanks her down, sheathing his length in a single thrust. She comes with a shout, writhing helpless in his arms.

His hands dig into her hips and he levers her over his length as she shudders, until she can move herself. Their pace quickens and they kiss each other, tongues tangling together and sharp breaths mixing. Fenris catches her wrists one at a time and pulls them behind her, pinning them in one hand. Helpless and not inclined to fight back, she lets him tug her into an arched position, her breasts presented to his mouth as he thrusts into her. His free hand grips her hip and then dips down, his thumb circling her bud again. This time, as she climaxes, he jerks and moans, mouth pressed to her collarbone as he comes.

Panting, they collapse against each other. Hawke burrows her head into his shoulder and grins. He tucks several loose pieces of her hair over her ear and eyes her from his odd angle.

"What are you so pleased about?" he asks tiredly, but she can see his smirk.

In response, Hawke wiggles in his lap, pleased when his not-yet-soft length springs to full hardness still inside of her. "What am I not pleased about?" she answers, lifting her head up to kiss him.

With a moan and a grunt, Fenris stands, holding her with her legs around his waist and keeping himself inside of her. Each step he takes toward the bed makes his pants slide lower down his legs until they fall down onto the mattress, hearing a harsh squeal of protest at their combined weight. He kicks them away as he resumes thrusting into her. They kiss, clinging to each other with limbs and lips, rolling across the bed as they make love at a more leisurely pace. Sparks of lyrium-infused magic dart between their skins, sharp bolts of pure pleasure driving them to the edge. Green eyes stare into hers as they climax together.

He nuzzles her neck and pulls her into his arms and they fall asleep like that.

* * *

><p>There are so many mad blood mages around. Hawke is too lenient on apostates, and Fenris knows that she wants to believe in them but he can see the foolishness of her ways. When Varric is kidnapped by that mad bitch Grace, Fenris runs her through with his sword and spends the night shouting at Hawke in between bouts of passionate coupling.<p>

She is so patient with him. Her eyes dance when he yells at her and she moans, breathless, when he grips her hair and bites her neck in a combination of lust and frustration. Things are escalating in Kirkwall and yet their world is safe, precious, beautiful. Within the walls of Hawke's bedroom, where he all but lives these days, he feels safe enough to tell her of all his furies, and she trusts him enough to let him take them out on her.

Fenris never hurts her. Little nips on her neck and breasts, the occasional tug of dark hair. When that elven blood mage Huon murders his wife in front of them, Fenris ties Hawke's hands to the bedpost. She flushes and moans as he kneels before her, tasting the sweetish musk of her and hooking her legs over his shoulders. Afterward he strokes her hair and begs her forgiveness for tying her up.

"Oh, I've rather missed it," she smirks.

Then he realizes that she will allow this, that she enjoys it. He asks Varric, who can keep a secret better than Isabela, one day when Hawke leaves with the women for a few days on Sundermount.

"Why does she allow me to... bind her?" he says, scowling into a mug of ale.

Varric chuckles and deals out cards for Wicked Grace. Fenris can't even concentrate enough to recognize his hand. "Well, for one thing, she trusts you. She knows you aren't going to hurt her," he answers. His clever eyes twinkle over a broad, sly grin. "And my guess is she kinda likes letting you be in control. She's always the one giving orders on the battlefield, after all."

When she returns from Sundermount there is a haunted expression in her eyes. She tells him about the Keeper, possessed by Merrill's demon, and how the Dalish would have killed them if she hadn't been so furious at Merrill that she swore the girl wouldn't be a threat if she had to kill her herself. With tears in her eyes she lets him hold her for several long minutes, and then she tips her face up toward him and kisses him. The kisses grow frantic and as he starts to strip their clothes away, she draws back, her fingers trailing over the red sash on his wrist.

"Would you?" she asks him. "Please?"

Who is he to refuse such an offer? He secures her to the bed, finding other scarves and sashes until each of her limbs is tied to a different pillar of the massive bed. For an entire hour he worships her with his hands and mouth, kissing every inch of bare skin and tracing her curves with his fingers. She moans and writhes for him, thrashing against her bonds as he tests every erogenous zone and every possible method to make her come. When at last he moves down to her spread-apart thighs, staring over the length of her naked body as he breathes her scent, she gives him another pleading stare.

"I want to do that to you," she whispers, flushed at her own dirty suggestion. Already aching with hardness, Fenris obeys immediately, shucking off his leggings and kneeling to straddle her shoulders. He moans as her lips find his tip and holds onto the base of his erection to steady himself as she lifts her head to suck him into her mouth. He gasps, trembling as she bobs over his length and gripping the headboard so hard his nails gouge the wood. The pressure and suction conspire and he spills into her mouth before he can stop himself, gasping and moaning her name.

"I am sorry," he murmurs, stroking her cheek. "I did not mean-"

She shakes her head. "I enjoy giving you pleasure," she answers. Then, with a cheeky grin, she adds, "Funny that I'm the one tied up and you're putty in my hands."

Fenris growls and smirks at her, shifting back between her thighs. His revenge is sweet and salty and he draws out more than one orgasm before he is hard enough to slide into the soaking heat of her passage. By the end of the night they are too tired even to untie her. He falls asleep sheathed to the hilt inside of her, face pillowed on her breasts and one of her legs (which ripped a sheer veil scarf) wrapped around his hips.

That is how Varric and Aveline find them the next morning, bursting through the door and halting in a clatter of armor and surprised exclamations.

"It's happened," Aveline says, averting her eyes as Fenris snarls and hauls blankets over their naked bodies. Hawke clenches her fists and the scarves untie themselves in an impressive display of finely-controlled telekinesis. "We need to get to the Gallows before there can be bloodshed."

Not even an hour later the concussive force of the Chantry's explosion rattles them. Hawke nearly stumbles off her feet and he grabs her, holding her upright and shielding her from flying debris with his body. The abomination shoots them a bitter look and Fenris feels a surge of hate. It is his fault. He stares into Hawke's eyes, knowing she will choose to defend her mage brethren. His mind whirls.

He can't leave her. Never again. But to defend these mages, these weak cowards who turn to blood magic and demons at the first hint of Templar armor? The thought sickens him. Does Hawke know what she's doing? His internal tempest of warring thoughts drowns out the conversation around him and he stares at Hawke. He will not leave her side, no matter the danger they face. Perhaps he can convince her of how foolish it would be to stand against the Templars.

Hawke walks up behind Anders and a small knife flashes off her belt to sink in the other mage's back. Her eyes are soft and sad and she turns to stare at Meredith.

"There," she says quietly, "You have your justice. The man who did this is dead."

"I hereby invoke the Right of Annulment," Meredith shrieks. Her gloved finger trembles as she points at Hawke, her blue eyes wild with madness. "It is your duty as Champion to stand with me." Fenris can feel her insanity in palpable waves, the sort of madness that corruption like blood magic gives to Magisters. He's learned to smell it.

"You've got to be kidding me," Hawke answers. "You can't blame anyone else for this. Anders did it himself. He didn't even tell the rest of us what he was doing. If you do this, it won't be justice. It will be genocide."

But Meredith only shrieks the louder. She calls Hawke a traitor to Kirkwall, calls her an apostate, accuses her of blood magic. Fenris is ready to tear the Knight-Commander's heart out on the spot. But Hawke tosses her head and answers that she will not help murder innocents. She tells Meredith that her madness and abuse have gone too far, that Anders would never have done such a thing if the Circle were not as corrupt as if demons held it in sway.

When Hawke finally turns around to glance at her companions, to see who among them will stand with her, Fenris takes a step forward.

"I will not abandon you," he says, and he truly means it.

* * *

><p>I know they have the epic kiss scene, but I just liked ending it here, on that significant statement. Also had fun tearing down any respect Fen might have for Meredith there.<p> 


End file.
